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.
The community of Newbury Park, California is located in the western portion of the city of Thousand Oaks and Casa Conejo, an unincorporated area of southern Ventura County. It is located in the East County area of Ventura County in the Conejo Valley, the northwestern portion of the Greater Los Angeles Area. Newbury Park abuts the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, with main entrances at the northern edge of the park at Rancho Sierra Vista and Satwiwa. The Conejo Valley is one of the most affluent areas in the country. Presently, Newbury Park has the highest median home values in all of Ventura County, around $730,000. It was ranked as one of the top 100 places to live in the country by Money Magazine. Also, it has the 11th highest per capita income and the 4th highest median household income in the nation (against all other cities with a population of 50,000 or more). The community is served by the Thousand Oaks Library System with two libraries, the Grant R. Brimhall Library, the largest in the region, and the Newbury Park Branch Library. The ZIP Code is 91320, and the community is inside area code 805.