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.
Orangeburg, also known as "The Garden City," is the principal city and county seat of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city population was 12,765 at the 2000 census (13,224 at 2008 estimates), within a Greater Orangeburg population of 67,326. The city is located 37 miles southeast of Columbia, on the north fork of the Edisto River. In May 2000, the city created the Orangeburg County Community of Character initiative, which is a collaborative effort by the Downtown Orangeburg Revitalization Association (DORA), The Times and Democrat newspaper, the Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce, and the Orangeburg County Development Commission. In 2005, the National Civic League awarded Orangeburg County with the coveted All-America City Award (which can be awarded to either a city or a county), which recognizes and encourages civic excellence and honors communities in which citizens, government, businesses, and non-profit organizations demonstrate successful resolution of critical community issues. In 2007, Orangeburg hosted the first 2007 Democratic U.S. presidential candidate debate at Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium on the campus of South Carolina State University.