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Gov. Jay Inslee announced Thursday that five more regions will move to Phase 2 of the state's reopening plan, Healthy Washington - Roadmap to Recovery. As of Sunday, seven of the eight regions in the state will be in Phase 2. These regions represent more than 90 percent of the state's population.

The following regions will stay in Phase 1: South Central

The following regions will stay in Phase 2: Puget Sound, West

The following regions will move from Phase 1 to Phase 2: East, North, North Central, Northwest, Southwest

The following regions will move from Phase 2 to Phase 1: None

Regions are required to meet three of the four public health metrics to progress to Phase 2. The South Central region, the only one to remain in Phase 1, currently meets two of the four metrics.

There is still no future razor clam dates to be announced until domoic acid levels in razor clams drop below the action level.

"We have no projections of when that might be; however, we do know that in three of the four major domoic acid events that occurred in the fall (of)1991-92, 1997-98 and 2002-03, domoic acid levels in razor clams remained evaluated through the end of the season," according to WDFW Coastal Shellfish Manager Dan Ayres early Thursday morning. "We will continue to test every two weeks."

Listed below are the most recent marine toxin levels, as announced by the Washington Department of Health (WDOH).

According to Ayres, before a beach can be opened for the harvest of razor clams, WDOH protocol requires that all razor clam samples collected from that beach must test under the action level (20 ppm for domoic acid; 80 µg/100g for PSP; and 16 µg/100g for DSP) on both of two required sample collections, that must be spaced 7 to 10 days apart.

To the Editor,

I am writing to share my concerns about the possibility of commercially expanding the Toledo airport. The reasons my family resides in Lewis County consists of the lifestyle quality, rural beauty, quiet, safe, and small-town community atmosphere, all of which are now at great risk. We have a young family and think this is a great place to raise our kids. We did not move here, nor does anybody else choose to live in Toledo, to be next to "SeaTac 2" which is now under serious consideration. After attending the CRAT (Citizens for Responsible Aviation in Toledo) meeting this last Wednesday, it is clear that many others share the same values and feelings as my family.

If you have been following any of the recent developments for this proposition, you may have heard rhetoric there is no chance that it will happen. I would like to remind you that there are in fact many reasons why building a large airport here is enticing such as the low cost of land, fewer residents impacted and the resistance will be less intimidating due to our small community, just to name a few.

The snow arrived in the area starting on Thursday, February 11, and it didn't stop for days. Starting on Thursday, Lewis County saw flurries of snow. It didn't stick enough to cause a lot of damage Thursday, but we kept hearing snow accumulation was on the way. Friday was the day "snowmageddon" began and by Saturday, we were all stuck at home with some homes having a foot of snow or more and no electricity.

Thursday, we saw the snow falling, but the accumulation was not until the evening, we were out and about getting ready for the storm. As we all ran into the grocery stores to stock up, we were all talking about the impending doom that was headed our way. Why is it when a storm is brewing, we feel the need to stock up on everything for days? I have never figured out why we need a month of toilet paper for 5 days of storms. The thing to remember, we are Lewis County residents, we can survive anything. By Thursday evening, we knew we were in for a whopper of a storm. It was then that we were saying, "it won't stop."

Longtime and experienced in the fire service, Bill Didion is the newly appointed Raymond Department Fire Chief.

Didion began his career with the Raymond Fire Department (RFD) in 2000 as a resident/volunteer and was hired as a firefighter/paramedic in 2007, where he has served until taking over as chief. He has been in the fire service for more than 20 years, including time as a volunteer with RFD and the Naselle Fire Dept. Didion was also employed by Pacific County Fire District #1 for four years as a Firefighter/EMT. He has been a full-time employee of RFD since 2007. For the last several years he has been the Captain of the C shift as well as the Fire Training Officer for the department.

Didion is a 1997 graduate of Naselle High School, as he said, "The home of the Comets." Bill and his wife, Sheila, have five children, Koda, Kenzy, Kemra, Hannah and Benson, and two grandchildren, Carter and Naomi. After high school, he attended Clatsop Community College, Bates Fire Academy in Tacoma, and went on to become certified as a paramedic at The College of Emergency Services.

The Raymond Police Department has a nice new home after completing the move across the street last January, according to Raymond Police Chief Chuck Spoor.

The new address is 302 Second Street in historic downtown Raymond; it's where the old Pennywise used to be located.

Chief Spoor informed the Herald that the building cost the city of Raymond $230,000. "Renovations and getting it set up as a police department cost us another 230k," Spoor said.

Chief Spoor cited a number of reasons for why the RPD needed a new place to live so to speak.

"Over the last decade or so we have been dealing with a serious leak between the fire and police department," Spoor said. "During the severe storm last January, the leaks became much worse, damaging drywall and creating a mold problem as well. We mitigated the issue by removing all drywall and ceiling materials and had the areas cleaned of mold. The building also had some structural issues due to settling, causing a wall to separate from the roof in the area of the sally port.