Public utilities provide electric, gas, water or telephone service to customers in a specified area. Utilities have a duty to provide safe and adequate service on reasonable terms to anyone who lives within the service area on without discriminating between customers. Because most utilities operate in near monopolistic conditions, they can be heavily regulated by local, state, and federal authorities. Generally, the local and state agencies are called Public Service Commissions (PSC) or Public Utility Commissions (PUC). Municipal Utilities and Rural Electric Cooperatives may be unregulated though.
El Verano is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sonoma Valley, Sonoma County, California, United States. The population was 3,954 at the 2000 census. El Verano's name is Spanish and means "The Summer. " Resorts in El Verano, and the other nearby communities of Boyes Hot Springs, Fetters Hot Springs, and Agua Caliente were popular health retreats for tourists from San Francisco and points beyond until the middle of the 20th century because of the geothermic hot springs that still well up from deep within the earth. One El Verano resort from that era that still exists, albeit in altered form, is the Little Switzerland nightclub at the corner of Grove Street and Riverside Drive.