When the Allen County Council met this morning, it considered a request that county property taxes on $27 million of its possible $46 million investment in Allen County be suspended for 10 years.

GM officials pitched the project shortly after the council opened its 8:30 a.m. meeting.

The vote was unanimous, 7-0.

Gov. Mitch Daniels was relatively lukewarm about the idea of the state giving tax abatements and training grants to aid General Motors.

"GM is in the handout business these days," he said at POET Biorefining in North Manchester on Thursday.

Asked about the possibility of abatements and grants while he was in town for the Indiana Economic Development Commission meeting, he said the IECD is in the business in creating new jobs, but that the state is looking into the possibility.

Local GM officials want to expand the Allen County plant's capabilities so it can make heavy-duty, extended-cab Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks. Light-duty versions of the trucks already are made there.

If it becomes reality, the project would mean the plant's 2,600 workers would retain their jobs and a second shift would keep operating, according to an earlier story in The Journal Gazette.

GM's tax abatement application says the project would allow GM to retain 50 jobs at the assembly plant.

GM's Flint, Mich., assembly plant - which already makes heavy-duty trucks - is also interested in producing more.

Heavy-duty pickups were made at GM's plant in Oshawa, Ontario, which closed last month. They're also made at the Pontiac, Mich., assembly plant, which is slated to close in October.

One line at the Flint plant is devoted to building medium-duty trucks such as the Chevrolet Kodiak and the GMC TopKick. But the company has judged the trucks to be unsuccessful, and production on the line, which employs 360, is scheduled to end July 31.

GM makes pickup trucks in Allen County, Flint and Pontiac. The 2008 Harbour Report, published by a Michigan-based consulting and research firm, said the Allen County plant was GM's most productive pickup truck plant and the third-most productive large pickup truck plant in North America.

In 2008, General Motors paid $4.4 million in local property taxes - money that was spread among several taxing districts, including Southwest Allen County Schools and the city of Fort Wayne. That tax bill was based on an assessed value of $204 million, which includes the value of equipment, buildings and land, according to the Allen County Auditor's Office.