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.
Owingsville is a city in Bath County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 1,488 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Bath County, and located roughly in the center of the county, at the junction of U.S. 60 and Kentucky Route 36. Owingsville is part of the Mount Sterling Micropolitan Statistical Area. Land for the town was donated by Richard Menefee, a politician and father of Representative Richard Hickman Menefee, and Thomas Dye Owings, owner of a local iron foundry. A local story is that both men wanted to name the town, and the honor was given to Owings after he won a contest to build a finer home. The town was incorporated in 1829. Owingsville is the birth place of Civil War general John Bell Hood, Indiana governors Henry S. Lane and Claude Matthews and Tennessee governor Alvin Hawkins.