You have the opportunity to vote on neighborhood action plans on the weekends. If you don't vote, you're stuck with whatever random NAP the townies vote for. If you do vote, it's easy to outvote all the townies on your own, just click the NAP you want several times. Sounds like your neighborhood voted for water conservation and power conservation.
There is an in-game repeal process that you can do for one NAP per weekend. Click on the mailbox to start that. There are also cheat codes. You can google those.