“We have been busy working with federal officials to ensure
that your visits home to Palm Beach County will continue to be enjoyable,” the letter read, “and provide a place away from the White House to conduct the important business of the country.”
The commissioners all agreed it was important to set the “right tone.”
In January, Mr. Trump’s lawyers made what previously would have been an unheard-of request: They asked for permission from Palm Beach officials
to build a 50-foot concrete helipad outside Mar-a-Lago, to accommodate Marine One, the helicopter that carries the president.
By MICHAEL LaFORGIA and STEVE EDERMAY 6, 2017
PALM BEACH, Fla. — For local officials here, it was one thing to spar with Donald J. Trump, the developer, over the height of his ficus hedges, the crowds at his Elton John concerts
and the roar of jet engines over his private club, Mar-a-Lago.
Even then, town leaders conditioned their approval on Mr. Trump’s signing a 17-page “use agreement,”
which his lawyer later would describe as “like ankle bracelets on an innocent prisoner.”
A sample of Mr. Trump’s correspondence with local government in Palm Beach County.
If he didn’t get everything he wanted the first time around, he might get enough to make it worth his while.”
When Mr. Trump used a Boeing 727 in the 1990s, it was the loudest plane at the Palm Beach County airport, according to former airport officials.