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.
Lascassas (also Las Casas or Las Cassas) is an unincorporated community in Rutherford County, Tennessee, near the city of Murfreesboro. Its geographic coordinates are 35°55'49"N, 86°17'28"W. The community's namesake is Bartolome de las Casas (1474-1566), a Spanish missionary on Christopher Columbus' third expedition who was known as the "Apostle of the Indians" in recognition of his efforts to protect the native population from slavery and abuse. Lascassas is the site of a public elementary school operated by the Rutherford County school district and enrolling students from pre-kindergarten through grade 8. Current enrollment is about 855 students. The American actor John M. Picard was born in Lascassas in 1913 and died on a farm near there in 1993 of injuries sustained in an attack by a bull.