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.
Winesburg is an unincorporated community in southwestern Paint Township, Holmes County, Ohio, United States. The town sits on the crest of a hill in the Amish country of Ohio, with a quaint downtown containing antique shops. It lies along U.S. Route 62. The town was founded in the early 19th century and originally named Weinsberg, after Weinsberg in Germany. The spelling was changed to Winesburg by postal authorities in 1833 when a post office was opened there. It is not the setting of the novel Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, a collection of inter-related fictional short stories about members of the town set in the early 20th century. (Clyde, Ohio, is the town that Sherwood Anderson grew up in, and is the basis for Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio.)