The U.S. Secret Service will have to wait at least another month to learn if a planned helicopter landing pad may remain at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club beyond the end of his second term in office.
Palm Beach’s town council voted unanimously April 14 to delay a decision on a request from the agency to allow the helipad to remain in place while a person protected by the Secret Service is in residence. The helipad is needed, a Mar-a-Lago representative said, because of ongoing and increasing threats to Trump and his family.
Those threats are expected to continue past the end of Trump’s presidency, attorney Harvey Oyer of Shutts & Bowen told the Town Council.
“He is, according to the U.S. Secret Service, the most-threatened protectee in the history of the U.S. Secret Service,” Oyer said. “That is not going to end when his presidency ends.”
Council members directed Town Manager Kirk Blouin and Town Attorney Joanne O’Connor to work with Oyer to set up conditions for the landing zone to remain. The measure is expected to return before the council on May 12.
Council members want to establish guardrails for how the pad is used — including rules that would ban club members or others who are not members of law enforcement or the military from using the landing site. Those rules should be established to protect the town and its residents, Oyer said.
“This is not for club use. It’s not for club-member use. It’s not for private use,” he told the council. “It is for governmental use, (Trump’s) duties as president and any emergency evacuation by some agency, whether that is Secret Service or White House Military Office or your (police).”
When a Mar-a-Lago helipad was first approved in 2017 at the beginning of Trump’s initial term as president, the Town Council did so with the condition that the concrete pad be removed when Trump left office. The original helipad was demolished in 2021, within weeks of Trump’s departure from the White House.
Late last year, Mar-a-Lago representatives came back to Town Hall with the request to reinstall a larger pad to accommodate newer helicopters used to carry the president and White House staff and officials. The Landmarks Preservation Commission, which oversees any exterior changes at landmarked Mar-a-Lago, approved the design for the pad in October.
The new pad would be 8 inches deep, with an 18-foot long and 5-foot wide walkway connected to a nearby service road. The landing area would be on Mar-a-Lago’s west lawn, in the same location where it was from 2017 to 2021. Construction would take place this summer after the Mar-a-Lago Club closes for the season on Mother’s Day, Oyer said.
In December of 2017, a private helicopter bearing the Trump logo parked on the helipad for more than a week, prompting outrage from some residents and town officials who called out the use as a violation of the conditions under which the landing site was approved.
The helipad was used sparsely for presidential business during Trump’s first term. In one instance in 2019, the site was used for takeoff and landing for a presidential visit to the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee west of Palm Beach.
Should the conditions of approval be changed to allow the pad to remain beyond Trump’s second term, Oyer said, restrictions on the landing zone’s use are fully expected.
The helipad is a piece of a larger set of security considerations ongoing for Trump’s protection, amid threats from Iran and “multiple attempts on his life,” Oyer said.
“This is part of a much larger package of ‘hardening’ Mar-a-Lago and the (Trump International Golf Club’s) golf course with a lot of security functions because of what is believed to be sustained and very high-level threats against the president and his family,” he said.
The description of threats against Trump are not exaggerated, Blouin told the council.
After the end of Trump’s presidency, the designation of protectee would be extended only to first lady Melania Trump, and not to President Trump’s children or his extended family, Oyer said.
The thought that the helipad might be used to accommodated private aircraft again “gives me anxiety,” Mayor Danielle Moore said. She said she had heard the same from residents in recent days who questioned how much the town can control how the helipad is used.
“In my mind, the restrictions have to be pretty solid, and for my mind, it would be the for the lifetime of this president,” Moore said.
Some council members questioned the need to make a decision so early in Trump’s second term. “Why are we saying today that he’s going to need protection then?” Council Member Julie Araskog said, noting that the security situation when Trump leaves office might be different from the current conditions.
“I do believe Harvey’s explanation of why this needs to be done and needs to be done now is sufficient,” Council President Pro-Tem Lew Crampton said.
He added that the pad must not be used for private aviation: “No ‘Trump Air.’ No wealthy mogul.”
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach officials delay decision on long-term helipad at Mar-a-Lago
Reporting by Kristina Webb, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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