LAURINBURG — The Scotland County Board of Commissioners gave approval on Monday night to the construction of a solar array just north of Laurinburg.

The request for a conditional use permit came from Entropy Solar Integrators, concerning the potential placement of solar panels on 27 acres of a 263 acre area owned by Shoeheel Farms LLC on Log Cabin Road near U.S. 501.

The commissioners approved the request with one dissenting vote from Clarence McPhatter, who suggested that the county should not permit every solar array that comes before it. County Manager Kevin Patterson said that, in the county’s current ordinances, there is little ground on which to refuse one.

“Right now the planning and zoning board, they are looking at some draft modifications to the zoning ordinance,” Patterson said. “Those modifications would not apply to anything until this board finally approves them.”

Also on Monday, the board heard from Commissioner Carol McCall, the board’s representative for Eastpointe, the managed care organization which oversees disbursement of Medicaid funds to pay for mental health services in Scotland and 11 other counties in southeastern North Carolina.

To preempt statewide consolidation of mental health managed care organizations, Eastpointe is planning to pursue a merger with the Sandhills MCO, which serves Richmond, Hoke, Moore, Anson, Harnett, Lee, Montgomery, Randolph, and Guilford counties.

“Our administrations are similar, our budgets are very comparable, I see it as a positive for Scotland County because we’re gaining an additional 300 providers that all of our residents of Scotland County can have access to,” McCall said.

As the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services has issued plans that would involve consolidating the state’s 10 MCOs to four or five, counties served by Eastpointe could otherwise find themselves part of a 36-county area encompassing all of eastern North Carolina.

“As the commissioner representing Scotland County and our citizens, I like the Sandhills move because we’re geographically contingent with that entire catchment area,” said McCall. “It really is a plus for Scotland County, and even the counties out toward the east are in favor of this move as well.”

In other business on Monday, the commissioners:

— Appointed Mary Helen Norton to another four-year term as tax administrator.

— Appointed Renee Snipes to the Aging Advisory Council.

— Appointed Robert Macy to the Laurinburg-Scotland County Crime and Drug Committee.

— Appointed Cathy Poole, Jay Todd, John Alford, and Dale McInnis to the Lumber River Workforce Development Board.

— Reappointed Shannon Newton, Lee Gaunt, and Jim Walker to the Scotland County Historic Properties Commission.

— Reappointed Nick Sojka, Nancy Shelley, and Beacham McDougald to the Scotland County Tourism Development Authority.

Mary Katherine Murphy can be reached at 910-506-3169.