BY: Keith S. Shikowitz, Editor in Chief/Investigative Reporter
Robert Jowaiszas, Community Editor/Researcher
Recently, groups in opposition to the Republicans on the federal specifically President Trump and Congressman Mike Lawler, and local level, such as Indivisible have been accusing republican of wanting to limit free speech and particularly protests at the Four Corners in Nanuet, a traditional place of protesting since the Vietnam War.
More specifically, their targets locally have been Clarkstown Town Supervisor George Hoehmann and Ward 3 Board Member Donald Franchino.
The Webster Bank has been hit twice with no injuries.
Since this is a state rd our state representative have to get involved. The state dot installed an extension of turning lanes from Rte 59 to college ave. This made way for the Chic fila. This was done in record time. I would expect the same turn around for safety.
In an article dated November 14, 2025, Tina Traster claimed that at the November 6 board meeting:
At both a Nov. 6th town council meeting held on a Thursday at 5 pm (meetings are usually held Tuesday evenings), and at a Nanuet Civic Association meeting last week at the Nanuet Library, elected officials from Clarkstown said the town was considering limiting protests at the Four Corners to Sunday mornings from 8 to 10 am or relocating them. Nothing official has been proposed yet but Supervisor George Hoehmann, a Republican, said publicly that businesses were complaining about the protests. He also expressed displeasure at having to pay Clarkstown police overtime to man the recent large protests, which are a rebuke to Washington’s Republican party.
One thing Tina Traster does not take into account is that sometimes Board meetings are rescheduled from their regular times in order to ACCOMMODATE THE PUBLIC for MORE PUBLIC PARTICIPATION. This is a recognition that not everyone can make it to the regularly scheduled meetings due to other obligations. This is an increase in the democratic process by going to where the people are holding meetings that fit into their schedules, NOT the schedules of the board members, not a curtailment of the democratic process. When the Haverstraw Town Board held their meetings on Mondays, there were times when they moved them to Tuesdays (before making Tuesday the regular meeting day) because of national holidays.
Unfortunately, the agenda for that meeting does not bear out the accusation the agenda for the aforementioned meeting is as follows:
TOWN OF CLARKSTOWN: TOWN BOARD REGULAR MEETING
Town Hall Auditorium November 6, 2025, at 5:00 PM
AGENDA
SALUTE TO THE FLAG
CLERK CALLS THE ROLL
PUBLIC HEARING
PH-1. Adopting a Local Law Entitled: A Local Law Approving the Salary of the Elected, Appointed and Boards and Commissions Members of the Town of Clarkstown.
PH-2. Adopting a Local Law Entitled: A Local Law to Override the Tax Levy Limit Established by General Municipal Law § 3-c for Fiscal Year 2026
PH-3. Preliminary Budget Hearing for Year 2026
PUBLIC COMMENTS REGARDING AGENDA ITEMS AND GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENTS (Limited to 3 minutes)
RESOLUTIONS: 1. Adopting the 2026 Budget for the Town of Clarkstown
EXECUTIVE SESSION The Board may move into Executive Session to discuss personnel, negotiations, and/or litigation
matters.
ADJOURNMENT – UPCOMING MEETING: Next Town Board Meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 24, 2025.
“It seems very strange that these accusations would come about AFTER the Clarkstown Republicans swept the recent elections and now have a 5 – 0 Republican Town Board for the first time since 1958.” Said a resident.
“We should not have to fight this fight,” said Pascale Jean-Gilles, an Indivisible representative and a Nyack village trustee. “There have been protests at the Four Corners before I was even born. Vietnam, 9/11, pro-war, anti-war. As far as I know, protests at this location have always been peaceful.”
There is no fight to fight here. No one has denied that the protests have been peaceful, as was stated in this publication in an article posted on October 21, 2025:
While national media have often portrayed similar rallies as spontaneous, Saturday’s demonstration in Nanuet appeared highly coordinated. Volunteers from Indivisible Rockland (an anti-Trump, anti-Republican and anti-Lawler organization) wearing identifying vests and using walkie-talkies, guided participants, distributed pre-made signs, and managed the flow of the crowd. The event remained peaceful, but the organization and stage-like atmosphere suggested a well-planned effort rather than a grassroots uprising.
But talk of moving protests away from the Four Corners is alarming, she said, and fits in with national efforts to suppress free speech.
In another article published by this publication on November 19, 2025, it was pointed out:
The recent speculation that Ward 3 Clarkstown Councilman Don Franchino was going to propose restrictions on speech and protests at the Four Corners area in Nanuet are not accurate. A source at Town Supervisor George Hoehmann’s office confirmed that no proposals have been made to limit or relocate the protests. There are no official documents, meeting minutes, or announcements supporting the claim that any changes are under consideration.
As far as alleged national efforts suppress free speech are concerned, if President Trump was trying to do that, these NATIONAL “No Kings” protests would not have been allowed to happen. The one thing that the groups in opposition to President Trump have not been able to do is give SPECIFIC EXAMPLES of things he has done to do the things they are accusing him of.
The other thing the opposition conveniently “forgets”, or at minimum does not want to talk about because it would destroy their narrative, is the efforts of the last two democrat administration’s to limit or eliminate the exercise of First Amendment rights:
Let’s start with the IRS under the Obama administration targeting Tea Party organizations:
1. In 2013, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS), under the Obama administration, revealed that it had selected political groups applying for tax-exempt status for intensive scrutiny based on their names or political themes.
2. Initial reports described the selections as nearly exclusively of conservative groups with terms such as “Tea Party” in their names. According to Republican lawmakers, liberal-leaning groups and the Occupy movement had also triggered additional scrutiny, but at a lower rate than conservative groups. The Republican majority on the House Oversight Committee issued a report, which concluded that although some liberal groups were selected for additional review, the scrutiny that these groups received did not amount to targeting when compared to the greater scrutiny received by conservative groups.
Then there was the Obama administration’s “investigation” of AP reporters and subsequent raid and seizure of information:
The Obama administration was involved in a major controversy in 2013 for secretly seizing the phone records of Associated Press (AP) reporters as part of a government leak investigation. The administration’s actions were widely criticized by media organizations and civil liberties advocates as an “unprecedented intrusion” into news-gathering operations and a threat to press freedom.
This should have been known to the Obama DOJ and as such, regardless of how the AP got the information, this shouldn’t have happened. The US Supreme Court in the case of NY Times -v- United States, 1971 affirmed that they had a right to publish leaked information.
The leak: Daniel Ellsberg, a former government employee, leaked a top-secret study of the Vietnam War to the New York Times.
The government’s response to the publication: The Nixon administration, citing national security risks, attempted to use its executive authority to halt further publication of the papers by both the New York Times and the Washington Post.
The ruling:
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the newspapers, stating the government had not met the high bar of proof required to justify prior restraint. The majority opinion reasoned that the government did not show that publication would cause an immediate and irreparable harm to national security.
Let’s move on to the Biden administration:
Preventing information from being presented for debate about COVID that went against the administration’s “scientific findings” as misinformation and forcing social media to go along with it:
Zuckerberg’s Claims: In August 2024, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that the Biden administration pressured Facebook to censor certain COVID-19 content and that he regretted caving to that pressure, vowing to resist such demands in the future.
Forcing Social media to prevent publication of the Hunter Biden laptop story claiming it had all of the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign and having 51 current and former intel agents signing a letter verifying this, having never seen the laptop. The FBI also knew in December of 2019 that the laptop was real and not Russian disinformation campaign.
The Disinformation Governance Board: The board’s stated function was to protect national security by disseminating guidance to DHS agencies on combating misinformation, malinformation and disinformation that threatens the security of the homeland. The question was, who was going to decide what information fit into these categories and who was going to decide it?
Following what the Associated Press called a “bungled rollout”[4] and criticism from Republican lawmakers of what they saw as the board’s threat to freedom of speech,[5]
Then you have the Arctic Frost: According to Senate Judiciary Committee documents released October 29, 2025, Arctic Frost issued 197 subpoenas seeking records on approximately 430 Republican individuals and entities.[6] The investigation obtained phone metadata for nine federal lawmakers: eight Republican senators (Lindsey Graham, Bill Hagerty, Josh Hawley, Dan Sullivan, Tommy Tuberville, Ron Johnson, Cynthia Lummis, and Marsha Blackburn) and Representative Mike Kelly.[7] The FBI also obtained President Donald Trump‘s and Vice President Mike Pence‘s government-issued cell phones, with Biden White House assistance in facilitating the transfer.[8]
Documents show the investigation sought information about 92 Republican-linked individuals and organizations, including Turning Point USA, the Republican National Committee, Conservative Partnership Institute, and individuals including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Steve Bannon, Mark Meadows, Peter Navarro, and John Eastman.[9] The subpoenas sought communications with media companies, members of Congress, White House advisors, donor lists, and comprehensive banking records.[6]
Information is that Judge Boasberg signed those 197 subpoenas with no probable cause, which is a violation of the 4th Amendment and subsequently a violation of the First Amendment Rights of those the orders targeted.
“We’re seeing censorship without explanation,” she said. “Violation of free speech and free assembly cuts at the core of our Constitution.”
Again, what SPECIFIC LAWS have been PASSED or even PROPOSED in a legislative session, not some people saying that these government officials are doing this.
If you want to see censorship without explanation look at the examples above, all of which were done by DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATIONS!!!!!
Franchino in an interview with Tom Ossa stated that he cited Patrick Carroll, NYS Assemblyman for District 96, to advocate to New York State to invest in safety barriers for all the pedestrians and protestors, who typically use the weekends to voice their frustrations with Federal, State and local Government issues, spanning back to the 1970’s.
If a desire to protect people from harm is a violation of free speech and assembly, then he is guilty.
In her article Traster claimed that both Hoehmann and Franchino, during meetings, said the large protests were irritating businesses. No specific businesses were cited. If she knows this is not true, then why didn’t SHE have specific quotes from managers of Chipotle and Shake Shack refuting these statements instead of only publishing a statement that they were working cooperatively with Indivisible.
I read the “article turned editorial” Tina Traster wrote. I was by the protest there. I know there were a lot of people, definitely more than 1000. My question is, Where did Traster get the number 4500 from? Was someone counting people with a counter or a turnstile that keeps track of how many people? Short of filling the parking lots on both sides of Route 59, where are 4500 people going to stand? Said a lady who gave her name as Nancy.
This information that Traster quoted was from the Indvisible organizers of the event. She reported this as fact, yet she never independently verified the information she received.
In her editorial Traster bashed Franchino by stating, “Franchino, who either doesn’t understand how things work or was spreading misinformation, said in a public forum that the protests, which he confused with an “event,” require a permit. Protests in Clarkstown do not require permits. He further said that “event” organizers need to have insurance for such events. This is patently false. One would think Franchino, a former insurance broker whose family still runs the company, would know better.”
The suppression of free speech might also elicit that opposite reaction, making people more resolute to assert their rights and fight for hard-won American freedoms that we’re not willing to relinquish.
Even IF Franchino was mistaken in his definition of when a permit is needed, requiring a permit DOES NOT CONSTITUTE a suppression of speech.
In Clarkstown, a permit is not required for a peaceful protest on a public sidewalk, but it is needed for events that close streets, block traffic, use amplified sound in a large group, (many people would consider a group of 4500 people as a LARGE ONE) or occur in specific areas like parks or plazas. (The strip mall behind Chipotle and Shake Shack is called ROCKLAND PLAZA) For events that require a permit, you will need to seek one from local government authorities well in advance, though recent discussions have centered on the need for clearer guidelines and safety measures.
The story states protestors “worked with police” or at minimum “notified police” about the size of the crowds they were expecting in advance of the event. There is no confirmation or quotes from the police or any government official to verify these statements. The statement is presented as fact as attributed to Indvisible Rockland without any supporting evidence.
Traster pointed out the following about First Amendment Rights:
The right to assemble is a fundamental freedom founded on the First Amendment. It allows people to organize, gather peacefully and to protest. However, the right is not absolute; a local government can require permits, provided the availability of a permit is not conditioned on the content of the speech or the reason for the protest.
Municipalities can deny protesters the right to assemble in a particular location, but only through “time, place, and manner restrictions” that are content-neutral, serve a significant government interest (like public safety), and leave open other reasonable alternatives for protest. The municipality cannot use these rules to shut down a protest because of the viewpoint being expressed.
These two paragraphs defeats their entire argument. Keeping in mind that Franchino said all he was looking for was concrete barriers or guardrails for the safety of people protesting and others in the area when protests are happening. Without having any concrete evidence that Franchino, Hoehmann or the Clarkstown Board are planning to or have passed any legislation on restricting the times that a protest can take place that are based on the content of the protest they have no case to make that their First Amendment Rights are being restricted or taken away.
All of the claims that have been made in her articles are based on rumor, conjecture and an attempt to paint the now total Republican Clarkstown Board as villains who are trying to silence any opposition. Again, if any of the governments on any level was planning on stifling freedom of speech and the right to protest PEACEFULLY, those “no kings” protests would never have happened.
There are other inaccuracies and misstatements in Traster’s publications.
Mistakes & Inaccurate Information in her Story
Calling a public statement a “leak” She wrote that officials “leaked their intentions.”
Problem: A leak is private information secretly released and NOT by the person allegedly saying it.
The officials spoke publicly at a Town Board meeting and a civic meeting. This is not a leak; it is a public discussion.
Inaccuracy: Misuse of terminology to create drama.
Not verifying the claim of a leak
She never shows who leaked it, any documentation, any off-the-record conversation, or evidence anything was secret
Inaccuracy: Claim presented as fact with zero supporting evidence.
Mixing news with opinion
Examples: Using loaded language (“strong dissent,” “leaked,” “isn’t this what authoritarians do?”)
Suggesting motives without proof, Implies wrongdoing rather than reporting facts
Inaccuracy: Report reads like an editorial even before she openly re-labeled it as one.
Using speculative statements as fact Examples include: “Officials appear to be targeting Trump protesters.”, “This is designed to silence dissent.”
Problem: She gives no evidence of targeting or intent.The officials themselves never said this.
Inaccuracy: She reports speculation as though it were fact.
Presenting assumptions as confirmed information
Example: Suggesting a coordinated plan between officials, Suggesting timing and motive without documentation
Inaccuracy: These are assumptions, not facts.
Similarity between her “news” story and her editorial
Same structure, Same accusations, Same talking points, Same emotional tone
Admitting the story was moved to “editorial” after criticism
This shows she recognized it was not factual enough for a news piece. That suggests the initial news version was improperly labeled.
No factual rebuttal
She provides no evidence of a leak, provides no documentation, provides no correction. does not cite sources, Instead she doubles down emotionally. In her article Traster claimed that both Hoehmann and Franchino, during meetings, said the large protests were irritating businesses. No specific businesses were cited. If she knows this is not true, then why didn’t SHE have specific quotes from managers of Chipotle and Shake Shack refuting these statements instead of only publishing a statement that they were working cooperatively with Indivisible.
After the publication of her original “news” story in which she never mentioned information that she put in her revised editorial, stating RCBJ has sent an email to the Clarkstown Police seeking data that supports safety issue complaints or a significant number of arrests at that location over the past three years.
Another resident who read the story feels that in her opinion the reason Hoehmann and Franchino did not respond to Traster’s calls is that they know that their statements will be twisted and spun to support their narrative that they are going to limit or take away their First Amendment rights.
We are in the process of gathering more information on this story for future publication.