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.
Kandiyohi is a city in Kandiyohi County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 555 at the 2000 census. In 1869 the Minnesota legislature voted Kandiyohi to be the new state capital due to its central location. The bill was vetoed by governor William Rainey Marshall on the grounds that "[t]he western treeless districts" further out from Kandiyohi would place the capital away from the likely population center.