{"id":332630,"date":"2026-08-29T13:32:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T13:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/332630\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T13:32:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T13:32:27","slug":"rochester-city-council-rebukes-trumps-lake-renaming-as-flaccid-stunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/332630\/","title":{"rendered":"Rochester City Council rebukes Trump’s lake renaming as ‘flaccid stunt’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rochester City Council added its voice to those rejecting \u2013 even mocking<\/a> \u2013 President Donald Trump\u2019s executive order renaming Lake Ontario<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis desperate and flaccid stunt by the President is a clear distraction from the issues that matter most to U.S. voters: the failing economy, housing, affordability and, lest we forget, President Trump\u2019s unwanted and unwarranted war with Iran,\u201d reads a proclamation unanimously signed by all nine members of the all-Democrat council on Friday.<\/p>\n

City Council President Miguel Mel\u00e9ndez later appeared on CTV News, Canada’s largest broadcaster<\/a>, saying Rochesterians “stand with our Canadian brothers and sisters in allied-ship, in terms of making sure we protect our Great Lake.”<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately for citizens of the United States we’ve had many instances of chaos like this, and many local residents feel like this is just another attempt at trying to create division in our community. And we won’t stand for it,” he said, describing Trump’s trade war and lake renaming as a means to distract from his record in the approach to the midterms. “And so the city of Rochester is standing up. At this point, many of our neighbors are frankly laughing at this, But unfortunately it’s no laughing matter. This is an historical lake that has been Lake Ontario before the United States was the United States, and there’s no reason to change it now.”<\/p>\n

Trump wants the lake renamed Lake America and has directed all arms of the federal government to make it so. Reliably blue New York is the only state bordering Lake Ontario, and Rochester is the largest U.S. city on the lake. Trump\u2019s pronouncements have tied the name of the lake to the Canadian province of Ontario, but the lake was named by the indigenous people long before the province came into being or the first European settlers arrived.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Seneca Nation President J. Conrad Seneca denounced Trump’s action<\/a> as “un-presidential and demeaning to his office and his standing as the leader of the free world. His blatant disrespect toward the Seneca people, other Haudenosaunee nations, and all Indigenous people is unacceptable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will always call Lake Ontario by the name derived from the language of our ancestors,” Seneca continued, “the name that, like the strength and influence of the Seneca people, will live on forever, long after the intrusive political tirades of individual men.”<\/p>\n

The City Council proclamation echoed Seneca, likening the president\u2019s claim of renaming Lake Ontario to \u201cgiving a new nickname to a Great Lake whose cultural legacy will outlive us all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mel\u00e9ndez also plans to introduce a resolution calling on the federal government to reverse the president\u2019s order.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump mused on social implied the name of the lake is tied to the Canadian province, instead of the other way around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rochester City Council added its voice to those rejecting \u2013 even mocking \u2013 President Donald Trump\u2019s executive order…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-332630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}