Very little was done publicly by the Jefferson County Commission in its ongoing efforts to ward off bankruptcy on Thursday, but the body’s president said there’s plenty being done behind closed doors.

The commission met in executive session for more than four hours, talking with attorneys about the latest settlement proposal from creditors, who are owed $3.14 billion in delinquent debt on the county’s sewer system.

After emerging from that session, Commission President David Carrington told a roomful of reporters that the commission had been asked by Gov. Robert Bentley to prepare a counter-offer to the proposal, in hopes of securing more concessions on some points.

Carrington didn’t offer details on the ongoing negotiations, saying they were “fragile and confidential,” but did say that Bentley requested a “standstill” until Friday, when a meeting has been set for 9 a.m.

Bentley’s chief of staff, David Perry, was part of the closed-door meeting.

If creditors don’t accept the county’s counteroffer, then the commission will discuss either a Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy declaration — which would be the largest such action in United States history — or legal action against the creditors, or both. Another standstill will not be an option Friday, Carrington said.

Carrington and his fellow commissioners were mum about the details of the latest creditors’ proposal, but the president did speak optimistically afterward.

“If we weren’t making progress, we wouldn’t have another standstill,” Carrington said.

Commissioner Joe Knight, who represents most of northern Jefferson County, was similarly hopeful.

“Negotiations are a back-and-forth. We’ve reviewed what they have in detail, and there wasn’t anything new. This is what came in last week,” Knight said. “Hopefully they’ll get something back to us quickly. That’s why you don’t draw the line in the sand. You can have 10 points, and nine of them you’d agree on but there’s a little glitch in the tenth.”

The wear and tear of the debt crisis, which has now gone on for more than three years, was starting to show on Knight and his colleagues a bit.

“I think it’s been a good day — an exhausting day,” Knight said. “I think the five of us together being able to sit down with the attorneys, and listen to things point by point, was good for us all.”

So far, the county has asked for $1.3 billion to be knocked off the principal owed to bondholders, with the balance to be refinanced at a more favorable interest rate. The creditors, most of them Wall Street investment firms such as JPMorgan Chase, responded with an offer to discount $1.0 billion.

The county has also proposed raising sewer rates, which are already among the nation’s highest, by as much as 8 percent a year for three years. Creditors sought those increases for five years.

Full regular payments to bondholders have not been made since 2008.

Because of the sheer size of the threatened bankruptcy, the commission’s action has gained nationwide attention. Thursday’s meeting was covered by several members of the national media, particularly those which concentrate on the financial sector such as Dow Jones News Service, Reuters and Bloomberg News.