Hancock County Fiscal Court immediately went into Executive Session Monday
night during their 5:00 meeting at the Career Center. Judge/Executive Jack
McCaslin said the session was to discuss "economic development."

After 40 minutes of deliberation, the court re-entered regular session and
McCaslin reverted the floor to Director of Hancock County's Industrial
Foundation Jim Fallin.

Fallin said a company was seeking revenue bonds from the court.

"We would like to ask the county fiscal court's consideration of a
resolution to induce a company considering a manufacturing facility in
Hancock County," he said. "They are considering multiple river locations in
the county."

Fallin said the bonds would total $950 million.

If the proposed plant was to locate in Hancock County, Fallin said it would
employ 115 persons permanently and would call for 350 construction workers.

"That's really all we'd like to say at this time," said Fallin. "because
they are looking at multiple locations."

The nature of the manufacturing plant was not disclosed. However, Icon
Construction, Inc. was listed as the receiver of the bonds in the resolution
provided by Stoll, Keenon & Ogden law firm, who serves as the county's bond
counsel.

Upon researching Icon Construction's Web site, one can rumor that the
facility will in some way be linked to a method of gasification. Their site
states, "Icon is one of the few U.S. companies with direct experience with
gasification technologies."

Icon's site says the company has been working with gasification since 2003.

It states they have direct experience with the following gasification
related processes: raw gas clean-up, acid gas removal, mercury removal,
sulfur recovery, urea production, coal pulverizing, among a plethora of
other processes.

Gasification is a method of converting coal into energy products, in a clean
way. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, coal gasification is a
process that converts coal from a solid to a gas. The gas that is created is
very similar to natural gas and can be used to make chemicals, fertilizer,
and/or electric power. Due to its high efficiencies, gasification also uses
less coal to produce the same amount of energy, resulting in lower carbon
dioxide emissions, about 80-percent less. And because the carbon dioxide is
concentrated, it can be captured more easily.

According to the World Coal Institute, there are currently 117 gasification
plants worldwide, and 10 are being planned for the near future. The nearest
gasification plant to Hancock County is located in Terre Haute, Indiana at
the Wabash River Coal Gasification Repowering Plant. And at Duke Energy in
southern Indiana, a facility is slated to open in 2012.

In August 2007, Kentucky began offering incentives to companies to build
coal gasification plants in the state. So it is not unlikely to see a
company try to locate here.

Tim Eifler, with Stoll, Keenon & Ogden, informed the court that the property
would be in the county's name until the bonds were paid off. Also, the
county would not be obligated for repayment of the bond; the company would
be making lease payments.

Judge McCaslin asked that the taxes collected be sent directly to the
Hancock County School System. He said this would prevent them from being
channeled through the state, whom which would take a cut from them.

"It's going to be a big benefit to the school," he said.

"It will be a big boost for our school system, and county-wide."

The resolution stated that the court would be "giving preliminary approval
to industrial revenue bond financing for Icon Construction Inc."

The resolution also stated this would authorize the "initiation of
acquisition and construction of an industrial project."

McCaslin said the new plant would mean a lot to the community.

"It will bring good paying jobs for our citizens," he said. "Anything that
benefits our community, we have to support it."

With that statement, McCaslin made a motion to adopt the resolution. Motion
was passed unanimously.

McCaslin noted, "Jim [Fallin] has worked real hard on this project for a
long time."

"We hope this will result in them making an announcement that they're coming
to Hancock County," concluded Fallin.

In other news

Hancock Fiscal Court opened bids for the Dukes water project Monday night
during their meeting. This was a re-bid after totals came in too high months
prior.

Judge McCaslin said the bids were taken under advisement, but that they came
in $80,000 more this round. He attributes the high costs to steel prices.