Today, the Austin Daily Herald begins its three-part series titled "Air of Concern."

We hope the series will inform our readers on how local citizens, city officials and business owners feel about the issue of a possible smoking ban in either Austin or throughout Mower County.

This newspaper's responsibility is to enlighten its readers and inform the community. That's what we hope to accomplish through the production of this series.

We're pleased to be the ones leading the way in reporting this issue. There's other similar issues that we're eyeing that will be beneficial to our readers, and it's those you can expect to read in the coming weeks and months.