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.
Manchester, Maryland, is a small incorporated town in Northeastern Carroll County, Maryland located on the Eastern coast of the United States of America just South of the Pennsylvania State line and North of Baltimore, Maryland. The population was 3,329 at the 2000 census making it the 21st most populous town in Maryland. Manchester was incorporated in 1834 and is the second oldest incorporated area in Carroll County after Westminster, Maryland, which was incorporated in 1818. The town was originally formed as a part of Baltimore County, Maryland, before the creation of Carroll County in 1837. It is governed by an elected mayor and an elected five person town council. Manchester lies in the humid continental climate region, marked by cold and snowy winters but humid and hot summers. This climate is ideal for growing farmed crops in the summer such as sweet corn and squash, leaving much of the outlying area marked with large tracts of farmland. Manchester is a rural commuting town where residents travel to work in the greater Baltimore Metropolitan Area.