Yeah yeah, I remember growing up at the tail end of municipal essential services (USSR). For example, plumbers! You call up the municipal services on a Saturday with a water leak, and they tell you "the plumbers are out till Monday, and actually Monday is fully booked so see you Tuesday". I am not sure if private plumbers were fully illegal or a gray area, but we didn't "know a guy", so my mom used to be pretty good with plumbing fixes.

As long as competition exists or can be enforced, municipal services should not exist.