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.
Elk Grove Village is a municipality located in northeastern Illinois adjacent to O'Hare International Airport and the City of Chicago. Elk Grove Village encompasses 10.9 square miles (28 km) in land area with 10.5 square miles (27 km) located in Cook County and 0.4 square miles (1.0 km) located in DuPage County, Illinois. The population was 34,727 at the 2000 census. As the name suggests, Elk Grove Village is home to a small herd of elk kept in a grove at the eastern edge of the Busse Woods forest preserve. However, elk are not native to the area, and the name "Elk Grove" actually comes from a mispronunciation of the Native American name for the place. Furthermore, the original elk herd was brought from Montana by an early resident, Busse, in the 1920s.