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.
Leeds is a town in Androscoggin County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,001 at the 2000 census. It is included in both the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine Metropolitan New England City and Town Area. Leeds was the hometown of General Oliver O. Howard, a Union general in the Civil War who later headed the Freedmen's Bureau and Howard University. It was also the hometown of a Confederate general--an interesting juxtaposition for such a small town.