It included an update from the Veterans Affairs office, approval of a placement agreement for a couple youth and approval of an agreement with a half-way house option for those coming out of jail.

The meeting was held on the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Each commissioner’s meeting includes a moment of silence at the outset.

Today’s was focused on that anniversary.

Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton The annual “Field of Flags” at Warren County Memorial Park. There is one flag to each of the individuals killed on Sept. 11, 2001.

“This is kind of a sacred day,” Commissioner Ken Klakamp said. “I was chief deputy with the Sheriff’s Office that day.”

He said that day was “almost a day like today. The weather was absolutely gorgeous.”

He read a proclamation that the commissioners approved to remember the day.

After the meeting, he talked about how that day unfolded for the Sheriff’s Office.

“That day I had a dentist appointment first thing in the morning,” he said, sitting in the chair when the first tower fell.

“We were told at that time that there was still a plane in the air and it could be over this area,” he recalled.

That was likely a reference to Flight 93.

“The deputies, we were all out and about,” he said. “We went up the Kinzua Dam.”

The county then – and now – has an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide patrols there.

“We had people up there all day and at night,” Klakamp said. “It was scary.”

Familiar questions were at the forefront of their minds that day: Are we done? Is there more?

“As you go throughout your day,” he added, “take some time to think about that day.”