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.
Baker is a city in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, United States, and a part of the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 13,793 at the 2000 census. The City of Baker is known as a Great American Hometown. Ossie Brown, who served as East Baton Rouge Parish district attorney from 1972—1984, grew up in Baker and graduated from Baker High School. While a student there, he composed the Baker High alma mater Former Louisiana State Senator Mike Cross was the mayor of Baker from 1976-1981, having been preceded and succeeded in the latter position by Norman E. "Pete" Heine. Heine's successor, Bobby Simpson, a Republican, became the East Baton Rouge mayor-president in 2001. Former Louisiana State Representative Tony Perkins resided in Baker until he relocated to Washington, D.C. , to head the Family Research Council. W.W. Dumas, the East Baton Rouge Parish mayor-president from 1965-1980, was from Baker, where he relocated after World War II to play semi-professional baseball.