HANCOCK — The Hancock City Council held its second budget meeting workshop Wednesday night, following the regular council meeting.

The first budget issue to be addressed was the motor pool fund.

“I’m using the information that Bill Marler presented to us,” said City Manager Mary Babcock. “As you can see, he said we needed a new Caterpillar loader, which he estimated at $250,000. Then we also have our pickup trucks which are in terrible shape. The newest one we have is 2016, and the others go down into the early 2000s. We did have to replace the transmission in our main truck that the crews used last week, and our greater leases coming up for renewal in October.

“So that is also something that we will need to take care of.”

Babcock also pointed out that the city’s vehicles took less “wear and tear” than most years due to the unusually light snowfall.

The council also discussed the possibility of purchasing a grader for $250,000, but more research and planning will be done before a decision can be made.

Babcock warned that action would need to be taken sooner than later in regards to the winter vehicles.

“So the grader in October, we have to take action on,” she said. “We’re either going to have to lease or purchase something for that no matter what. For the loader, there is a concern that it will not make it through another winter. We have spent a lot of time and money on refurbishing it, and it’s really old. So our goal will be to try to start seeing what’s out there.”

The council intends to replace the equipment as advised, but will search for grants in hopes of offsetting as much of the costs as possible. Babcock suggested waiting to see if anything would come from the infrastructure bill being discussed at the national level.

Other budget discussion included funds for the Downtown Development Association (DDA). Discussion included continuing their funding as usual, but also increasing funds to the DDA’s beautification committee, and possibly to a local group called The Wild Ones, with Marcia Goodrich.

Babcock mentioned the Wild Ones applied for grants to work along Ingot Street, near the Keweenaw Co-Op. The council is entertaining meeting with Wild Ones to do work similar to the beautification committee.

The city council has decided more budget workshops will be necessary to cover the general fund, as well as smaller funds and projects unattached to the general fund.