The Beaufort County Board of Commissioners approved several items on its agenda at its meeting Monday. In other action, the board:

• Voted 7-0 to appropriate $237,598.43 from 911 funds for the purchase of 60 radios for the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office to be used on the N.C. State VIPER network that will include upgraded features, when available in the Beaufort County region. The radios are needed because radios currently used by sheriff’s deputies do not work in some areas of the county, the board was told.
• Voted 5-2 to approve a plan presented by Beaufort County Health Department Director Roxanne Holloman to implement a program for poor pregnant women and young children who are eligible for Medicaid from Beaufort and Hyde counties. The $237,682 program, funded by Medicaid, is designed to lower health-care costs by preventing emergency-room visits by pregnant women and young children, the commissioners were told. Commissioners Hood Richardson and Stan Deatherage cast dissenting votes. Richardson said the program is racist because it prevents poor women covered by the program — mostly Hispanics and other minorities — from receiving care from the county’s private obstetricians and gynecologists.
• Voted 7-0 to appropriate $90,000 in county funds to match a One North Carolina grant from the N.C. Department of Commerce to be allocated to Project Tree House to employ some 90 people over the next three years. Richardson abstained from the vote. Under board rules, his vote was counted as an affirmative vote.
• Awarded five contracts totaling $386,750.40 for emergency recovery and scattered site projects for home construction projects funded by Community Development Block Grants.
• Voted 5-2 to approve $4,787.48 in travel expenses, with Richardson and Deatherage casting dissenting votes.
• Voted unanimously to approve a resolution presented by Commissioner Robert Cayton calling on members of Congress to either extend the current Surface Transportation Act at current funding rate or reauthorize a new Surface Transportation Act and federal gasoline tax at its current rate, with the provision that all revenue generated by motorists in North Carolina be returned to the state.
• Unanimously approved a resolution authorizing temporary housing units to be placed on property in flood-prone areas for residents affected by Hurricane Irene, with the provision that the temporary units be removed after six months. Those residents who have not been able to complete the repairs on their homes after six months will have to ask for extensions.
• Made the following appointments: Sonya Jones as the nurse representative to the Beaufort County Board of Health; Al Klemm as the commissioners’ representative and Evelyne Roberson, Jay McRoy and Alice Mills Sadler as public representatives to the Beaufort County Economic Development Commission; John Pack, David Fields and Carolyn Hughes to the Region Q EMS Advisory Council; Klemm as the alternate representative to the Mid-East Commission Board; County Manager Randell Woodruff to the Coastal Resources Advisory Council and Ed Modlin to the Beaufort-Hyde-Martin Regional Library Board. The commissioners tabled one appointment to the health board and appointments to the county’s planning board.

All commissioners attended the meeting.