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.
Freeland is a census-designated place (CDP) in Island County, Washington, United States. The population was 1,313 at the 2000 census. The town received its name based on its origins as a commune in the early 1900s—literally, in the eyes of its socialist founders, the land of the town was to be free for all people. (Some of the first settlers were veterans of a prior experiment in socialism, the nearby Equality Colony.)