The Corcoran Chamber of Commerce will host its second summer Stix and Flicks tomorrow (Friday) evening. The free concert and movie will take place at Christmas Tree Park downtown.
Fantasy Band will provide the music for concert-goers. The three-piece band is best know for their performances at the Tachi Palace and Casino, where they play a mixture of classic rock and oldies.
The featured film is Penelope, the story of a lonely heiress who has spent her life trying to break a strange family curse that has left her with the nose of a pig. The movie is a modern-day fairytale.
Corcoran Police Activities League (PAL) will be set up in the park with it’s hot dog cart and free popcorn will be available for all those who come to see the movie.
Local residents are encouraged to bring their lawn chairs and come down for the evening.

Whether or not the City of Corcoran is on board with a state prison re-entry facility being located in the county—and perhaps in Corcoran—is a decision that will wait for a couple of more weeks. The council discussed the possibility with county personnel during Monday evening’s regular session, but deferred a decision on the matter until the entire body is assembled.
Two members of the council were unable to make the Monday meeting.
The county is under the gun to come up with a site for a re-entry facility, since the issue is tied to $30 million in funding for a new county jail. The county scored high with the state funding request, but the grant will be directly impacted by the county’s commitment to welcoming a prison inmate re-entry facility.
Earlier this year, Kings County joined Coalinga, which is planning such a site, but those plans fell through when Coalinga decided to continue with its plans alone.
Partnerships have been formed and abandoned in the search to place the re-entry facilities, authorized in 2007 by Assembly Bill 900. The re-entry facilities will house up to 500 inmates with one year or less left on their state prison sentences, into the new facilities that will be set up to reduce the possibility that inmates return to prison. They will be taught life skills and job skills to better help them cope with life outside prison walls.
State law requires that inmates be released back into the counties where they committed the crime that resulted in their prison sentence.
Therefore, re-entry facilities will be located statewide. In rural counties, such as Kings County, cities and counties are forming partnerships in order to fill the 500 beds. The Kings County facility, for example, will include inmates from neighboring Fresno and Tulare counties. Those inmates from the surrounding counties will not be released in Kings County, but will return to their own area, once released.
County personnel, including Sheriff Chris Jordan, pointed out Monday evening that the country is in dire need of jail expansion. The ability to incarcerate more local criminals, he said, makes the entire country a safer place to live.
The benefit of a re-entry facility, it was noted, is that the inmates will be returning to our county with better tools and services, allowing them to become better citizens.
Mayor Dick Haile pointed out that Corcoran has done its part to help, already hosting a pair of prisons. He said water was a concern for the local area in siting another facility that would house 500 inmates, while bringing another 300 jobs.
Carlo Wilcox said the water amount, with respect to the local aquifer, would be negligible.
And, while 300 jobs could be created, Councilman Larry Hanshew pondered how many of those jobs would be held by residents of Corcoran.
"With the prisons here now, the majority of employees live elsewhere," he pointed out.
Larry Spikes, the county’s administrative officer, said the county will be allowed to present three sites to the state. That must be done by Aug. 6. The late approach to the council, he said, was caused by Coalinga’s change of plans in May of this year.
The council is being asked to adopt a resolution in favor of building the re-entry facility in Kings County. Corcoran may or may not be the location for the facility. Lemoore has chosen not to adopt such a resolution, while the Hanford City Council has come on board with the proposal.
In the end, the council determined it will bring the matter back to the table when a full five members are present. That meeting is expected to take place Aug. 4 at 6 p.m. in the council chambers.

Students attending Kings Lake Education Center starting in August will be faced with a new dress code. The local school board adopted the dress code in late June.
The dress code is in place for all educational programs at the Kings Lake site.
"Students at Kings Lake are expected to dress in such a way that they will not endanger their health or safety, or that of others around them," said Mary Taylor, principal at the site. "Neither should a student’s clothes or appearance be such that it disrupts the learning process."
The new dress code standard calls for shirts and pants that are black, white or tan. Solid blue jeans are allowed. No blue or red items (other than blue jeans) of clothing can be worn. No articles of clothing shall be allowed that have Old English text.
The dress code requirements and additional school information will be mailed home to parents in August.

While they haven’t been arrested and charged specifically with the arson at the Kings Country Club, two men have gone to jail in connection with over 30 arson fires in the Laton area in recent months.
The Kings County Sheriff’s Department, in conjunction with the Kings County Fire Department and the Fresno County Fire Department, said Tuesday that Christopher Furtado, 29, of Hanford, and Teddy Lee, 23, of Laton, had both been placed under arrest.
Both of the young men are volunteer firefighters with the Laton Volunteer Fire Department. Furtado has been serving as the assistant chief of the volunteer department.
Brian Wheat, assistant to Sheriff Chris Jordan, said the investigation into arsons, including the one that burned down the clubhouse at the golf course, is continuing. He said leads have been developed and are being followed up.
The Monday evening arrests were the culmination of several weeks of investigation and evidence collected from fires that occurred on both wild land and with structures.
Furtado and Lee were booked into the Kings County Jail on multiple charges of arson and were later transferred to the Fresno County Jail, since all of the fires for which they were arrested took place in Fresno County. Both have been charged with arson of a structure or forest land; and arson of property. The charges carry no bail.
While no direct link has been made between the arrests and the fire that burned down the clubhouse of the Kings Country Club, Sheriff Chris Jordan noted that the proximity of the golf course to Laton—the country club is just south of the community—obviously deserves further investigation.
The clubhouse was burned to the ground July 7, with a loss of approximately $750,000. Laton volunteer firefighters were among those who helped fight the blaze. The clubhouse was empty and undergoing renovation at the time of the fire.
The building originally served as the first Hanford High School, between 1911 and the early 1920s.