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.
Freeport (officially The Incorporated Village of Freeport) is a village in the Town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York, USA, on the South Shore of Long Island. The population was 43,783 at the 2000 census. A settlement since the 1640s, it was once an oystering community and later a resort popular with the New York City theater community. It is now primarily a bedroom suburb but retains a modest commercial waterfront and some light industry. The village is racially and ethnically diverse: the 2000 census shows the population as 42.9% White, 32.6% African American, and 33.5% Hispanic or Latino of any race.