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.
Hallettsville is a city in Lavaca County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,345 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Lavaca County. The town is home to the Texas Championship Domino Hall of Fame and also hosts a dominoes tournament every year in January. It also hosts its annual Kolache Fest and Fiddler's Frolic events every September and April. Hallettsville is the birthplace of the late philanthropist and businessman Adolph R. Hanslik of Lubbock, a Czech-American sometimes called the dean of Texas cotton exporters. It is also the only place called Hallettsville in the world. Ripley's Believe It or Not once called it the city of thirteen. There are also rumours of a tree that has a chest of gold buried under it.