A Glitch in Trump’s Plan to Live at Mar-a-Lago: A Pact He Signed Says He Can’t – The New York Times

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“As president, I think they gave him certain considerations that they felt were the appropriate thing because of his status,” said Mr. Zeitz, who encountered Mr. Trump decades ago when he represented a client whose property the then-casino owner wanted for an Atlantic City expansion.

Mr. Trump has sought to do things like build a dock attached to his property that the agreement prohibited, ostensibly for club members’ use. That effort was blocked by the town, and then the president submitted a revised effort claiming it was for private use for himself and the first lady. He withdrew the second dock petition after the 1993 use agreement became public.

With the letter, Mr. Stambaugh is hoping to push the town to make clear that Mr. Trump is flouting the terms of his agreement allowing him to convert the sprawling Mar-a-Lago property, once owned by Marjorie Merriweather Post, from a private residence into a club.

“The significant tax breaks the president received for this arrangement remain in effect, as does the use agreement,” Mr. Stambaugh wrote. “Some press reports indicate that renovation has already commenced at Mar-a-Lago in order to make the family quarters more commodious for full-time residency.”

Part of that use agreement, which was reviewed by The Times, limits how long members can stay there. It says that there cannot be stays for “three nonconsecutive seven-day periods by any one member during the year.”

The club is also supposed to file sworn statements with the town each year asserting that a minimum of 50 percent of its members live or work in Palm Beach and that the club has no more than 500 members.

Some of those reports have not been filed. And the club has seen a boom in the number of members who have joined in the past few years, according to records reviewed by The Times, although it is not clear if they replaced departing members.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/us/politics/trump-mar-a-lago.html

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