You may recall that the cereal heiress, Marjorie Merriweather Post, gifted her magnificent estate to the USG for use as a Presidential guest house. It was a nice gesture, but the Secret Service nixed the idea since PBI flight paths went directly over Mar-a-Lago. 

As a result, the brash NYC developer Donald Trump picked up the property for a song (reportedly $10 million) in 1985. He moved in and subsequently turned it into a private club to share the upkeep. Sweet. 

At that point, with the up-and-coming Trump decades away from the White House, the Secret Service was not involved and the flight paths over Mar-a-Lago, a national historical landmark, adjacent to the posh Bath & Tennis Club, were not an issue. 

Surprisingly, I have been a guest at both clubs, where I played tennis (B+T) and croquet (MaL), and can recall looking skyward at the planes flying overhead and thinking to myself, well, that is a drawback. But not a big one, because the planes were high enough not to be a genuine nuisance. At least not in my mind. 

But Trump felt otherwise and decided to do something about it, pre-POTUS ascension. Trump being Trump, he sued the airport. It’s a habit. In 1995, and again in 2010 and 2015. He just wanted the planes to go away. Anywhere. In 2015, Trump told the Palm Beach Post, “I want to make sure Mar-a-Lago’s historical structure is protected and not destroyed by the noise, the pollution and the soot.” Of course.

Palm Beach home owners are now making similar arguments. The new rules make the area around MaL a no-fly zone for a one-nautical-mile radius. As a practical matter, this means, the flight path is pushed into expensive albeit less lofty residential neighborhoods to the north, and some neighbors are having a fit.

According to the November 10th Palm Beach Daily News (aka The Shiny Sheet), “The restriction has forced air-traffic controllers to send planes over neighborhoods that historically have largely enjoyed peace and quiet, but now are bombarded with noise and possible pollution that comes from being under a busy airport’s primary flight path.” Wait, what?! 

Item. From the November 6th PB Town emergency meeting called to confront the crisis…one resident complained, “…Given the current state of affairs, which is planes traveling at low altitude with incredible noise starting at 6 a.m. and continuing well after 11 p.m, I’m starting to wonder if we’re going to have to relocate, which is really a sad thing for us….” OMG! Really?

Item. Town Manager Kirk Blouin is quoted in the same Shiny Sheet article, “Since the new restriction was issued in October, we’ve been receiving substantial complaints from our residents…primarily related to quality of life, noise and pollution, and we’re just looking for answers. Town officials are trying to identify who issued the order…the Town would like to have conversations with the people who made the decision….” 

Clearly, this is a conspiracy. May I suggest the Town of Palm Beach sue the Secret Service so that the Town can take depositions under oath. Otherwise, the Town will just play phone tag with the Feds. Representatives of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Secret Service did not attend the Town Hall meeting. The reason or excuse? The ongoing government shutdown due to the budget impasse in Washington. Ha!

What are the implications? The outraged residents are saying essentially what Trump said years ago, “Anywhere but here! Better those folks than us!” Can we surmise that both sides have acted like unspanked Karens? We can. The problem has been wildly exaggerated to make points. 

Now that Trump is President, he will have the last word. Trump feels entitled to do whatever he wants at any given moment irregardless. So Mar-a-Lago is saved from overflights. Fine and dandy. Its members and those of the B+T next door and The Donald can enjoy themselves free of distractions. I’m all for it.

On the other hand, there may be alternatives which might keep almost everybody happy. Let’s just shut down PBI entirely, except for Air Force One which could land and take off from and to the west. Under such circumstances, nobody in Palm Beach will be on the receiving-end of noise and pollution. The private jets of Palm Beach’s many billionaires can use the Boca Raton jetport a stone’s throw away. No big deal.

The rest of us flying commercial can take the Brightline train to Fort Lauderdale International just further south along I-95. Or we can hop on the venerable Amtrak Silver Meteor whose hundred-years-old rickety tracks head north, eventually reaching Penn Station in Manhattan. It’s an adventure worthy of the Twilight Zone. Why fly over an often ghastly countryside when you can see it up close, in third-class comfort and questionable safety? Make America Great Again!