(a)
(1) The commission shall have full power to manage, operate, improve, extend, maintain, and contract concerning the municipal waterworks and distribution system or electric light plant and system, or both, and has full power to employ or remove any and all assistants and employees and to fix, regulate, and pay their salaries.
(2) Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the commission is empowered to acquire, construct, and equip any and all facilities, consisting of real property, personal property, or mixed property of any and every kind, which in the judgment of the commission are necessary or useful as a part of or in connection with the municipal waterworks and distribution system or electric light plant and system, or both including, without limitation, facilities for the generation of electric power and related transmission facilities, which may be located within or without the corporate boundaries of the city. In furtherance of its authority to construct facilities for the distribution or transmission of electric energy and to provide its customers reliable utility service, the commission is granted the right of eminent domain outside the corporate limits of the municipality creating the commission, but subject to the provisions of § 14-201-102(b) and only within the contiguous service territory as heretofore or hereafter granted to the municipality by the Arkansas Public Service Commission and in accordance with the procedures of §§ 18-15-301 — 18-15-308 and as those sections may be amended.
(b)
(1) The commission is empowered to establish rates for water, or electricity, or both, and it may change the rates when the facts so warrant.
(2) The commission is empowered to execute long-term contracts for utility service, subject to the power to change the rates applicable to them as set out in this section.