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.
Mead is a Statutory Town in Weld County, Colorado, United States. The population was 2,017 at the 2000 census. Scenes from the movie Die Hard 2 starring Bruce Willis were filmed at the Highlandlake Church outside of Mead. As of 2009, there are no traffic signal lights in the town of Mead. The telephone central office for Mead (exchange 535) was recently upgraded to provide more advanced calling features, including DSL. Another upgrade of note is that the "all volunteer" fire department now has a full-time staff. The motto of the town has been "the little town that could" although this has not been ubiquitously used in all literature or signage. Alternatively, and on the Mead web site the motto is, "A little town with a big future".