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.
Menlo Park is an affluent city in San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is located at latitude 37°29' North, longitude 122°9' West. Menlo Park had 29,964 inhabitants as of the 2007 U.S. Census.