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.
Plainville is a hamlet on NY Route 370 about 4.5 miles west of Baldwinsville in Onondaga County, New York. It is noted for the extensive Plainville Turkey Farms, which remained in the same family from 1835 until recently. The business was sold and relocated to Pennsylvania in 2008 or 2009. Nearby on Route 370 west of the hamlet is the James Leslie Voorhees house, Whig Hill (1833), one of the major historic houses of Onondaga County. Voorhees was a wealthy landowner of nearby property and a builder of New York City as well as Central New York engineering projects who was active in New York State politics.