By Jack Prendergast, Yates County Chairman and SCOPE 2nd VP  

The easiest way to lose your independence is not to vote. Your vote counts. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. For 16 years, the Yates County SCOPE organization has been active in the mission of SCOPE standing in defense of the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution. Along with this comes the obligation to reach out to the public and educate them on the value of this Keystone Amendment.

To accomplish our task, we undertake two separate events that allow SCOPE to headline to the public our goal of education. We work to present the face of New York SCOPE to the community of Yates County. In this endeavor we hold, in August, a Pig Roast for SCOPE that invites in citizens that want to represent us in political office to meet Yates County residents. In October, we hold a Judges night where we have candidates that are running for the Supreme Court of New York, 7th Judicial District to come to Yates County and sell themselves to the voting public.

The August Yates County SCOPE Pig Roast is the largest county wide event for political candidates to come face to face with the public. We invite all candidates, all parties, to come mingle, interact and speak to their constituents. On August 25th of this year, we held our 16th Annual Pig Roast. Running in this year’s election we invited the US Senate, US Congressional, NY Gubernatorial, NY Senate and NY Assembly Candidates to our event. Each individual got a chance to speak to the Audience and mingle with the same. Also invited to the event were candidates for the NY State Supreme Court 7th Judicial District. We do not stop with the Federal and State positions that are up for contest. At our event we also carve out time for all County and Town candidates running for office to speak as well.

The invitation to speak is made well in advance of our event such that the candidates will have a chance to limit any conflicts in their travel as they move around the state, county etc.

On October 4th of this year Yates County SCOPE once again invites the public to attend our Judges Night event held at the Elks Club in Penn Yan, NY. At this event we concentrate on inviting the candidates that will be running for the Supreme Court in the 7th Judicial District. This event has always been well attended and once again, SCOPE opens this event to the public.

Education of the electorate is important. The voter must hear all points of view of candidates if they are to become informed. Yates County SCOPE will continue to do our part in bringing all candidates, all parties to the voting public for examination of the issues facing our towns, county, state and country. It’s what we do.