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.
Damascus is an unincorporated community in southwestern Goshen Township in Mahoning County and northwestern Butler Township in Columbiana County in the U.S. state of Ohio. Although it is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 44619. It lies at the intersection of U.S. Route 62 and State Routes 173 and 534. The Mahoning County portion of Damascus is part of the Youngstown–Warren–Boardman, OH-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, while the Columbiana County portion is part of the East Liverpool–Salem Micropolitan Statistical Area.