It’s time to do your civic duty.

We encourage anyone thinking to run for public office this year to file for one of the open positions on the Austin Public Schools board, Austin City Council, Mower County board, Austin Utilities board and other area entities over the next two weeks.

There are several seats up for grabs this year in almost every area of local government. The city council has four seats open this fall, as does the local school board. The county board has three seats open. In addition, not all incumbents are filing for re-election this year — school board member Greg Larson and council member Roger Boughton have each said they’re giving up their respective seats at the end of 2014.

That means there are opportunities for people who want to get involved in elected office, who want to make our city, our county, our schools better and better-run. We encourage anyone who is interested in running for a local position to contact the school district at 507-460-1800, the city of Austin at 507-437-9940, and the county at 507-437-9536 to learn more about the requirements for filing for office. Candidate filings opened on May 20 and will end on June 3. We hope to see several candidates step up to serve our area.