Upgrades approved for Chesapeake Energy Arena

Downtown's NBA arena is set for pandemicrelated and wireless phone service improvements approved by the city council. The NBA season is supposed to start Dec. 22.

Here's a summary of how things are changing at the city-owned Chesapeake Energy Arena:

• A new digital system feeding content to the arena's 900 TV monitors will be installed starting in December by Ford Audio-Video Systems. The council awarded a $1.046 million contract last week. Funding sources include bonds approved by voters in 2017. The new system is to be operational by the end of January.

• The council approved a 10-year access permit and license agreement allowing Verizon to install a 5G mobile phone network inside the arena. The Oklahoma City Thunder's ownership group, Professional Basketball Club LLC, asked the city to OK the deal.

• The council extended through March 31 authorization for $3 million to purchase COVID-19 related supplies and equipment for the arena, the Cox Convention Center and the new MAPS 3 convention center, being dedicated next month. Money goes to equipment for contact-less concessions, touch-less ticketing, electrostatic sanitizing sprayers, and more.

Of note: Agreements also were approved for enhanced wireless service in the new

convention center.

COVID-19: Mask ordinance extended

COVID-19 cases are putting an “immense burden” on the Oklahoma City area's hospital system, Dr. Patrick McGough, executive director of the Oklahoma City-County

Health Department, told the city council last week. Ward 2 Councilman James Cooper asked McGough whether it was true that 60% to 75% of COVID-19 ICU patients were from areas without mask mandates. “That is my understanding,” McGough said. The council voted to extend Oklahoma City's mask ordinance to Jan. 22.

Of note: “I try not to politicize anything,” McGough said. “I try to present data and data only.”

They said it

“It did not perform how we wanted it to perform.”

— OG&E spokesman Brian Alford, in remarks to the city council on failure of the utility's electrical grid in last month's ice storm. Hundreds of thousands of customers lost power, many for as long as two weeks. Noting how ice-burdened trees brought down overhead power lines, council members asked why more service lines are not underground. That is “a dollars and cents conversation,” Alford said, citing a study done after a 2007 ice storm. He acknowledged the “economy is driven by electricity” and said the storm was the worst in company history.

Calendar

The city council meets at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 8 at City Hall, 200 N Walker Ave.

Present/absent

The mayor and all eight city council members attended last week's meeting.

• In the first week, the city's two contractors picked up 5,000 tons of residential debris from the Oct. 26-27 ice storm, Utilities Director Chris Browning said. Crews still are mobilizing, he said, and “more trucks are on the way.” An estimated 100,000 tons of debris are out there to be removed; the task is expected to take until March.