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.
Salina is a city in and the county seat of Saline County, Kansas, United States. First settled in 1856 along the Saline and Smoky Hill Rivers and founded by William A. Phillips in 1858, Salina is situated at the intersection of Interstate Highways I-70 and I-135 in central Kansas. The population was 45,679 at the 2000 census, and it was estimated to be 46,140 in the year 2006. Salina is the principal city of the Salina Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Saline and Ottawa counties.