Every roll call on the Liverpool Board of Education's Jan. 21, 2025 agenda came back unanimous, except one. When the board moved to go into executive session "to obtain an update from legal counsel regarding an investigation and to discuss the superintendent search process," board member Stacey Chilbert voted no. The motion still carried, 7-1 — the only non-unanimous vote in a meeting that ran from 6 p.m. to 8:56 p.m. and otherwise moved nine routine items, a labor appointment, a legal settlement and a search-firm hire by identical 8-0 margins. The minutes give no further detail on what the investigation concerns, and Chilbert's objection is recorded only as a vote, not as a statement in the record. She rejoined the rest of the board minutes later, voting with the majority, 8-0, to return to open session once the closed-door discussion had ended. Before the board took up executive session, three residents used the public comment period. According to the minutes, Katherine Roberts spoke regarding accountability and taxpayer bills for legal fees. Lenny Ciricillo spoke regarding the Board. Brian Christopher made a statement of concern "in support of unity and healing." The minutes do not tie any of the three directly to the investigation the board later discussed in private, but the sequence — a resident raising legal-fee costs, another addressing the board generally, a third calling for healing — preceded the meeting's only contested vote. The board also moved forward on finding its next permanent leader. Douglas Lawrence is listed in the minutes as Interim Superintendent and was present for the meeting. Later in the session, the board voted 8-0 to appoint Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates as the district's Superintendent Search Consultant, a resolution that states the appointment came "as a result of the RFP." That vote followed the same closed session in which the board had discussed "the superintendent search process," though the minutes record the two as separate agenda items. Everything else on the agenda moved without friction. Under Routine Business, the board approved minutes from its Jan. 6 and Jan. 13 meetings, created eight new 1.0 FTE Cook I positions, accepted the recommendations of its committees on preschool and school-age special education, and approved a budget amendment and a surplus item — nine items in all, each carried 8-0 with the same eight members, Nicholas Blaney, Hayley Downs, Kimberly Martin, Jecenia Bresett, Daniel McKeever, Stacey Chilbert, Kimberly Melnik and Matthew Jones, voting aye. Earlier in the meeting, Morgan Road Middle School was recognized with a POOLS Award. Among the later action items, the board appointed Andy Lalonde, Esq., Director of Labor Relations for OCM BOCES, as the district's lead negotiator for successor contracts with the ULFA bargaining units, 8-0. A motion to accept gifts and grants passed 7-0, with Bresett abstaining; the minutes do not explain the abstention. The board also approved a settlement agreement in a matter listed as "910012931 v Liverpool Central School District," with all eight members voting aye. The minutes do not say what happens next on either the investigation raised in executive session or the timeline for the search that Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates was hired to run. The board's next two meetings were set for Feb. 3 and Feb. 25, 2025, both at 6 p.m. at the District Office.