With regard to the anonymous bogus letter sent to the Copley and Districts Progress Association, outlined in the Chronicles of Copalot, Issue 1, mid November, this response was issued by the Health Department, 27 October:

I refer to your letter where you forwarded to this office a letter of complaint from an anonymous source regarding the sale of fruit and vegetables that have allegedly been grown in raw human effluent.

After discussions with the owners and an inspection of the property I have found the content of the complaint to be unjustified.

After speaking with the owners and having inspected the property I find no Public Health risks associated with the property, should it continue in the state that was explained and inspected.

If any member of the CDPA wish to discuss the matter further, please contact me on the above number.

Environmental Health Officer
Regional Services Section

If you wanted to know our gardening secrets you only had to ask – it’s perspiration, inspiration, BD500 and lots of love. Back to the gardening, and maybe one day we will have something to sell at the market after we’ve shared food with all of our friends.

The ABC have reviewed the transcript summary of a recent SA Country Hour article on the withdrawel of funding for the Copley Newsletter, now the Copley Phoenix, and the decision by the CDPA to delete the Community News site from the Copley community domain. The summary has been amended with apologies to the Editor of the Copley Newsletter for misrepresentation. For the record, no notification or correspondence has ever been offered from the Copley and Districts Progress Association to explain why this Community News site was deleted from the Copley community domain by request of the Copley and Districts Progress Association.

The amended summary is published here, see below for an excerpt of the letter from the ABC.

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The Coober Pedy Regional Times features a spread on Copley in the latest edition, continuing the public discussion on many of the issues of concern to our local, regional and online communities, including freedom of speech, water management and local governance.

Download the excerpt here, or get yourself a copy of the latest Coober Pedy Regional Times online.

This post was submitted by Margaret Mackay, Editor of the Coober Pedy Regional Times, contact details below.

Hello Copley, we see you’re back online. We’re getting letters to Ed and phone calls about the News site.

“This site has been taken down at the request of the Copley and Districts Progress Association.”

Is everything ok over there? What’s the story with pulling the plug? Readers want and deserve an explanation.

You can’t unplug the News guys, it’s not China! And it isn’t progress.

We had the ABC on the phone yesterday…What do you want, prime time NATIONAL NEWS? Silencing a community is not done in this country and you can’t hide this even in Copley. We are going to notice!

If you guys don’t like different, then come over here. We have 43 nationalities and they are all different. But you have to appreciate differences. You can’t have it one way… Go for a holiday…get a break..come back fresh. Noone OWNS Copley. People share. People are fair. People care. Have you lost your sense of community?

You cannot justify this. A violation has occured in a position of trust. A community service has been pulled with no notice and no explanation.

Will the Editor or “progress” please get back to us with some answers for regional readers? “In writing”. Deadline is next Wednesday 5 pm.
Unfortunately you have been progressed right across the country for this little stunt. If I pick up my phone one more time and it’s about Copley, it will be reported to our Federal MP for investigation.

Margaret Mackay
Coober Pedy Regional Times
cooberpedyregionaltimes.net (10 – 23 July_page 7)
cptimes@ozemail.com.au
08 86725920

This is the summary of ideas presented by the fourteen people in attendance at the community planning workshop, compiled by Mark Shirley of the OACDT. The next step will be for Mark to develop a list of realistic projects for inclusion in the Community Plan to be presented to the CDPA in mid August 2008.

COMMUNITY

• Community centre to include youth, aged care, IT Training, to use as a Central meeting place, events area
• An environmentally sensitive building using solar power, using local skills ideas etc with the view of uniting whole community.
• business activities to promote employment
• working together
• Community Day- Back to Copley Day
• Arts/ Crafts projects
• Sharing facilities
• Unity
• Share the town
• Community support for aged who can’t physically do for themselves- people are the community
• Supporting each other
• Community fairs/ Craft stalls
• Events promoting community involvement, games, picnics etc
• Respect for each other
• Skills Audit

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This is the latest news from Copley & District Progress Association submitted by Rose. Keep an eye out for more updates in the CDPA News category.

• Progress has received a cheque from Community Benefit S.A. for the amount of $11,000. This is to be used to install new doors in the hall, & also carry out much needed repairs to it.
• Flinders Power has notified us of increased water rates, which we are currently negotiating.
• On Thursday evening 10th of April the CDPA will be providing a BBQ tea for “Wings On The Road”, a group of RFDS members & their support crew who are riding from the Outback (Alice Springs) to the Sea (Adelaide). They will be doing this the hard way – i.e. on the dirt roads & not bitumen! Please come along & help us welcome them, & make a donation to this worthy cause.
• CDPA has negotiated with Patrick Sewell to empty the community (main street) rubbish bins on a weekly basis.
• We have purchased a new laptop computer & accessories to facilitate easier management of the running of the CDPA.
• Committee & community members attended a meeting with Lorraine Edmunds, who spoke about the Mountains Of Memory Projects.
• New water tanks have arrived. They will be placed at the hall, old school house, information bay & Copley Cricket Club.
• Perilya in conjunction with ongoing tree planting will be doing more on the greening of Copley project.
• A train awareness program will be run in the near future, to educate children on the safety of the train shunting which will take place later on.