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.
North Bend is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The town was made famous by David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks (also filmed in nearby Snoqualmie. ) Since the Weyerhaeuser sawmill closed, North Bend has become an upscale bedroom community for the Eastside of Seattle, Washington, with property values more than doubling from 1997 to 2006. The population was 4,746 at the 2000 census. North Bend is home to Nintendo North Bend, the main North American production facility and distribution center for the video game console manufacturer Nintendo. Based on per capita income, one of the more reliable measures of affluence, North Bend ranks 52nd of 522 areas in the state of Washington to be ranked. The city's ZIP code is 98045.