HANCOCK — The Hancock City Council has its newest member.

The council appointed Mandy Lounibos to a two-year term by a 4-2 vote at Wednesday’s meeting. She applied along with Zack Osborn and Margo Pizzi, who also ran for the council seat in November.

Lounibos, who works as a nurse, said she was honored to represent Hancock residents.

“I’ve just been really impressed with all the changes and growth that’s happened here in the last few years, and I want to be part of that continued momentum,” she said.

Michael Lancour, who was elected to the position, was unable to serve on both the council and the Hancock Public Schools board. He resigned from the council immediately after being sworn in after the election.

After discussion opened, Councilor Lisa McKenzie made the motion to appoint Lounibos. She said she had been torn between choosing Lounibos or Pizzi. She noted that even members of the public who had spoken in favor of Osborn at a special meeting Tuesday had told Lounibos they wished she had run.

“I think that for (Mandy), she’s got a lot of work ethic,” McKenzie said. “You see that quiet, soft-spoken, no agenda … I think she’d be a really good fit to get things done on the city council.”

Lounibos said Wednesday many people had asked her to run over the summer, but at the time her schedule hadn’t permitted it.

“Now my schedule’s freed up, so when this opportunity came up, people just reached out again and asked me to run,” she said. “I think that gave me the encouragement I needed to go ahead and put my name in.”

As an appointed member, Lounibos said she’d be reluctant to try to set the agenda for the council. She is excited about the city’s recreation plans and continued work on economic development.

“There’s a lot of opportunities for grant writing right now,” she said. “There’s a lot of funding out there for the state and federal government, too.”

The three candidates answered questions from the council at a special meeting Tuesday.

Lounibos said she was interested in looking at public health issues. She has also helped run the Ryan Street Community Garden. The relationships she’s built in her 11 years in the city will help her contribute, she said.

“There’s a lot of needs here,” she said. “My profession is humbling, because we just never seem to have enough resources for everybody. But when you work together and form those good community relationships, you can really accomplish a lot and make a lot of difference to people’s lives.”

She also highlighted her experience writing grants for the garden.

Osborn, an educator and independent business owner, said he would try to promote growth in the city while not turning to large corporations that might sacrifice the city’s character. He pointed to his work in organizing a cold-season farmer’s market in the city, where he is also a vendor.

If appointed, he said, he would visit with local business owners to see how the city could help them improve their business or increase visibility.

“What I hope to do … is be that city councilman who takes the initiative, who does his homework, and actually tries to think creatively about how to bridge this gap between what it is that the people want and what’s actually easily practicable,” he said.

Pizzi, the runner-up behind Lancour, talked about her familiarity with the town’s history and its people. She moved to the city 49 years ago after having grown up in California, working as a small business owner and tailor before retiring.

She likes city assets such as the walking and skiing trails, or the free movie screenings at Quincy Green.

“We have to have growth, but you can’t let your little town die either,” she said. “…You have to have growth of some kind, whether it be little shops, markets. You have to have something that brings young families to our community, or keeps them in our community.”

She described herself as “old school,” saying she enjoyed meeting with people one-on-one to discuss city issues.

All three applicants said they would be interested in serving the city in another capacity if not picked.

Three members of the public spoke. The two who endorsed a specific candidate chose Osborn; Alan Salmi said when listening to the candidates’ interviews in November, Osborn had been the only one who talked about growth “in a sustained, reasonable way.”

The other resident to endorse Osborn said while she wished Lounibos had been on the ballot, she would prefer to see the council appoint one of the candidates who had run in November.

Council members said it was a quality field of applicants.

“It wasn’t that long ago it was hard to get anybody,” said Mayor Paul LaBine, who had been the only applicant when he initially joined council. “Now it’s actually competitive, which is actually great to see.”