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.
Kimball is a town in McDowell County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 411 at the 2000 census. Kimball was incorporated in 1911 and named for Frederick J. Kimball, who was a president of the Norfolk and Western Railway. Kimball was the site of the first war memorial building erected in memory of the African-American veterans of World War I.