President Trump Back In Palm Beach For Easter Weekend
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WEST PALM BEACH (CBSMiami) -- President Donald Trump will spend Easter weekend in Palm Beach.
This is the president's seventh trip to Mar-a-Lago since taking office.
Mr. Trump depart Washington D.C. at 4:20 p.m. and arrived at Palm Beach International Airport around 6:35 p.m. He's expected to leave Sunday before 4:30 p.m. according to a notice of temporary flight restrictions posted by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Road closures around Mar-a-Lago tied up traffic earlier in the day.
The First Family is expected to attend Easter service at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea, according to CBS4 sister station WPEC. Secret Service agents have been in the area all week canvasing the grounds ahead of the president's arrival.
It's the same church where President Trump and First Lady Melania were married in 2005 and most recently attended Christmas Mass.
Other than celebrating the holiday, it's unclear what else is on the agenda for the First Family's weekend.
President Trump plans to be back in D.C. in time for the Annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House.
In the 80 days of the Trump administration, presidential travel has cost U.S. tax payers $21 million.
In Palm Beach County, it costs roughly $60,000 a day to provide local security.
"I can't conceive of the idea that President Tump would want to impose those kinds of costs on local tax payers," said County Commissioner Hal Valeche.
Trump security has cost the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office a total more than $3 and a half million.
The county mayor says the county has been going back and forth with the feds to get reimbursed.
"It will be nice to know if the federal government will reimburse us for this or we will have reduce budgets in some areas or increase taxes to pay for the president's protection when he comes," Mayor Paulette Burdick said.
There have been suggestions that Mar-a-Lago be taxed at a special rate to help defray expenses. Not a good idea says commissioner Valeche.
"I think our best approach is to get this in front of the president. Probably dispose of it in less than a minute if he knew the facts," Valeche said.
The president's repeated trips to Mar-a-Lago also has caught the attention of government watchdogs and Democrats. A widely reported estimate sets the costs to taxpayers at over $3 million for each journey.
The figure comes from a government report on a 2013 golf trip former President Obama made to Palm Beach.
