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.
Olivebridge is a hamlet in Ulster County, New York, United States, within Catskill Park and the Catskill Mountains. The community's name is sometimes written Olive Bridge, but the United States Board on Geographic Names gives the name as Olivebridge. (Board decision, 1965) Olivebridge achieved some notoriety when its tiny town government successfully stood up to New York City on several land use/property tax issues, as well as its Town Justice Court rejecting the legal validity of a preemptive 35mph speed limit imposed on roads surrounding the Ashokan Reservoir by New York City.