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.
Libertyville is a northern suburb of Chicago in Lake County, Illinois, United States. It is located 5 miles west of Lake Michigan on the Des Plaines River. The 2000 census population was 20,742; the 2005 estimate was 21,760. (There is also a township of the same name, which includes the village and some surrounding areas. ) Located in northeastern Illinois southwest of Waukegan and west by northwest of Lake Forest, its immediate neighbors are Mundelein to the west, Lake Bluff to the east, Gurnee to the North and Vernon Hills to the south. Terry Weppler was elected mayor of Libertyville on April 8, 2009. Running on a platform of improving Libertyville by removing incompetence, he defeated incumbent Mayor Jeffrey Harger, 71 percent to 29 percent.