Royston accepted $400,000 water-main grant, but construction questions remain

Royston City Council has accepted the terms and conditions of a $400,000 Employment Incentive Program grant for the Dill’s Water Main project, a unanimous June 10, 2025 decision that secured grant backing for the utility effort while leaving its construction plan unresolved. Councilman Phillips made the motion, Councilman McCollum seconded it, and the measure passed 6-0.

The action matters because the grant represents a substantial public investment in water infrastructure, yet the council record does not say where the Dill’s main would run, which properties or customers could be affected, what the full project would cost or whether the city must supply additional money. Accepting the grant’s conditions authorizes that step in the funding process; it does not, on its own, approve construction.

The Dill’s vote followed the city’s earlier work on a broader CDBG-EIP 2025 Water Line Expansion Project. In December 2024, council awarded Thomas & Hutton an engineering-services contract for that expansion in another 6-0 vote, after officials had been asked to consider both a water-line-expansion application and an engineering contract. The December minutes establish the engineering-contract vote, though the event text does not state the meeting’s exact day. By June, the agenda placed the $400,000 Dill’s grant terms before council, and members accepted them the same day.

City officials voted unanimously to move forward with the grant conditions, and the recorded motion identifies Phillips and McCollum as the council members who advanced the measure. Thomas & Hutton was selected for engineering services on the broader expansion project, not identified in the Dill’s grant action as a construction contractor. The records contain no documented public opposition or support from affected residents, no stated position from a grant administrator beyond the terms council accepted, and no identification of specific accounts or parcels tied to Dill’s.

Two actions are documented as complete: the December 2024 award of the engineering-services contract for the broader water-line expansion and the June 2025 acceptance of the Dill’s grant terms. A March 2026 operations report recorded in the April 21 council minutes said pipe installation was continuing on a related Cook Street 12-inch water main. That report indicates activity on the related work, but it does not identify a Dill’s Water Main work plan, prove Dill’s construction has begun or show that either project is complete. The record cited here also does not establish a contractor award, final cost, grant-payment schedule or measurable system improvement for Dill’s.

The next meaningful public sign of follow-through would be a later council action or official record, such as a construction contract, expenditure, grant payment, amendment or project update. Until then, Royston has not publicly settled the Dill’s project’s start date, route and scope, costs beyond the $400,000 grant, potential city contribution, or the properties and customers it may affect. The April 2026 operations-report excerpt concerns other utility work and does not answer those Dill’s-specific questions.