In a memo produced by the city’s attorney and posted on the city’s website, attorney John “Skip” Randolph advised the city to review its zoning decree, which allows only bona fide employees to reside in private clubs. Thus, if Trump is a “bona fide employee of the club,” zoning the city would allow him to live there, Randolph concluded.
Randolph recommended in the memo that the city council listen to interested parties, including Trump, and discuss the issue further.
A letter from Trump’s lawyer to Randolph last month argued that the former president is a bona fide employee of the resort and therefore “clearly has the right to reside there”.
The city of Palm Beach will hear the review as part of the City Council Meeting scheduled for next Tuesday, in accordance with the agenda and supporting documents posted on the city’s website.
Trump bought the old Marjorie Merriweather Post property in 1985 and turned it into an exclusive club for members in 1993. To turn the private residence into a revenue-generating business, he had to agree to certain limitations, based on the guidelines presented as an agreement . Palm Beach breakers.
For example, there could be no more than 500 members, there were rules on parking and traffic, and club members could not spend more than seven consecutive days in Mar-a-Lago, or no more than three weeks in total per year. Trump signed the deal.
Randolph said the question “depends primarily on whether former President Trump is a genuine employee of the Club”. In the two-page legal memorandum, Randolph writes that the city’s zoning code for private clubs allows “a private club can provide housing only to its bona fide employees”. He added that the definition of the city code for employee “includes individual owners, partners, limited partners, corporate executives and the like.”
Randolph then concluded that “if he is a legitimate employee of the Club, without a specific restriction that prohibits former President Trump from residing in the Club, it appears that the Zoning Code allows him to reside in the Club.”
Randolph continued: “After reviewing all relevant presentations, the City Council must deliberate on this matter and determine what action, if any, should be taken.”
“It is a very discouraged place,” Laurence Leamer, historian and author of “Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace,” told MSNBC earlier this month. He said members “are not concerned with politics and said the food is not good”.
Leamer said he spoke to several former members who “left quietly” after Trump left office.
CNN’s Kate Bennett, Caroline Kelly, Katelyn Polantz and Alexis Benveniste contributed to this report.