The closed regulatory loop made operational, in one Pacific Northwest town. One company. Thirty-five legal entities. Thirty-one parcels. Forty-one million dollars in real estate. The mayor and a school board member work for the company. The pastor of the CEO's church says publicly that his theological tradition gives him "resources to govern unbelievers." This is what small-American-town capture looks like in 2026 — every step of it legal, every step of it visible, none of it assembled before now.
In April 2026, Oregon Public Broadcasting published "A Christian vision for Battle Ground?" — documenting Camden Spiller's quiet acquisition of a Washington town through Maddox Industrial Transformer and an interlocking network of holding companies. OPB's reporting laid out the religious-political project at a community-narrative level. This page extends that reporting in eight new dimensions, using public records that journalists typically don't have time to assemble.
The findings on this page are built entirely from public records: WA Secretary of State CCFS filings, Clark County GIS parcel data, MapsOnline owner records, WA PDC contribution records, USAspending.gov federal contract data, ProPublica IRS 990 filings, and Battle Ground City Council meeting records. Every claim has a verifiable source. The investigation walks back its own false positives where they didn't hold up to scrutiny.
Camden Spiller controls a vertically integrated network spanning real estate acquisition, construction, hospitality, manufacturing, religious infrastructure, and now municipal government. The structure forms a closed loop: profits from the manufacturer fund property acquisitions; properties become tenants for the hospitality arm and the affiliated church; the church and a national nonprofit provide ideological and political infrastructure; political infrastructure produces friendly municipal officials; municipal officials approve developer's agreements that subsidize the next phase of the project. Each step is legal. The aggregate is structural capture.
Vote: Fall 2025 · Unanimous
The Battle Ground City Council voted unanimously in Fall 2025 to approve the "Maddox Infrastructure Development Agreement" with BG Village Property, LLC (governing person: Nathaniel Taylor, Seattle attorney). The agreement commits the City of Battle Ground itself to act as the permit applicant for wetland mitigation and the extension of SE Rasmussen Boulevard and SE 18th Avenue, enabling the first phase of a 60-acre Maddox campus (14,000 sq ft chapel + 25,000 sq ft conference center for First Presbyterian Church). Maddox covers all costs.
The structural conflict: Eric Overholser was elected to City Council Position 7 in November 2023 and became Mayor in January 2026. His day job throughout this entire period has been Production Operations Manager at Maddox Industrial Transformer. He voted yes on a multi-million-dollar agreement with his own employer. Standard recusal rules apply only to direct personal financial interest, not to the employer's interest. The conflict is structurally invisible to the existing ethics framework, even though it is morally obvious.
Election: November 2025 · Seated: January 2026
Christopher Grewell — Project Manager at Maddox Industrial Transformer, US Air Force veteran — ran for District 3 on a "schools should focus on academics and respect families" / "parental rights" platform. He won with 12,538 votes (61.78%). He was seated alongside Lorri Sibley (District 1, Christian-faith candidate) and Marshall Marrott (District 5, uncontested after his opponent withdrew).
Within weeks of seating, Director Debbie Johnson moved to rescind Policy 1821, the framework governing director accountability ("Standards for Individual School Directors"). The vote was delayed February 23, 2026 amid public pushback but the motion remains on the table. The new board's first major institutional action is to remove the oversight framework that applies to itself.
Started: September 10, 2025 · Arbitration ruling: April 2026
On September 10, 2025 — the day Charlie Kirk was killed — a student texted his mother claiming Battle Ground HS social studies teacher Amanda Gonzales had said she had no sympathy for Nazis when asked about Kirk's death. Gonzales disputes the account: she says she said only "thoughts and prayers" and "he's not my political cup of tea." She was placed on paid administrative leave the same day. The text went viral; 100+ angry emails demanded termination.
In April 2026, third-party arbitrator Judge Elizabeth Martin ruled the allegations "not credible" and ordered Gonzales "entitled to be reinstated." Gonzales has been on paid leave for 8+ months. Lorri Sibley refused interview when contacted by OPB; the other four directors did not respond.
The chilling effect succeeded regardless of the arbitration outcome. Multiple BGHS teachers documented self-censorship on the record: English teacher Jordan Johnston now skips McCarthyism in The Crucible and Langston Hughes poems on race. Math teacher Joseph Drury reports feeling "less safe engaging with students." Johnston: "We're all walking on eggshells."
June 2024 · May 4, 2026 · May 5, 2026
In June 2024, then-Councilor Eric Overholser (with Tricia Davis and Victoria Ferrer) voted to remove a Pride Month proclamation from the council agenda, calling it "controversial." The proclamation was a near-identical template to the previously-approved Women's History Month proclamation — only seven word edits differed. Councilor Shane Bowman, the dissent, identified the double standard.
On May 4, 2026, now-Mayor Overholser personally read three proclamations at the council meeting: Police Week, Building Safety Month, and National Day of Prayer. Four residents publicly asked during public comment: why approve a National Day of Prayer proclamation but deny a Pride Month proclamation, when the templates are nearly identical?
The next day — May 5, 2026 — Battle Ground councilors voted to discuss adding meeting INVOCATIONS, religious prayers at the start of council meetings. The institutional momentum is one direction.
Program opened: May 1, 2026
Battle Ground launched a $50,000 Old Town Facade Improvement Grant Program with a 50% reimbursement structure (up to $10,000 per applicant). The geographic boundary is E. Main Street + NE/SE 1st Streets between Parkway and Fairgrounds Avenue — which exactly covers Spiller's Old Town acquisition cluster: Al & Ernie's (BG Property 10, 802 E Main), 105 E Main and 15 SE 1st Ave (BG Main Property), 711 NE 1st St (BG Property 11), and other BG Main Property holdings.
Spiller-controlled LLCs are eligible to apply as commercial property owners. Maddox Pro LLC — Spiller's licensed General Contractor (license MADDOPL756JD) — is eligible to perform the contracting work. City taxpayer money is geographically structured to flow disproportionately to the dominant property owner, by a city government whose mayor is that owner's employee.
Camden Spiller controls at least 35 confirmed Washington-registered LLCs plus one ghost parent (MIT HOLDINGS LLC, jurisdiction unknown — likely Delaware or Nevada). The structure uses five distinct naming conventions to make pattern-matching hard:
| Pattern | Examples | Strategic purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Numbered property series | BG PROPERTY 1-14 LLC; BG GRACE 1-15 LLC | UBI consolidation: 11 BG PROPERTY LLCs share one state filing (UBI 605109572). Camden can spin up sister LLCs without fresh state paperwork. |
| Address-named | 1601 SE Commerce LLC; 1801 Commerce Ave LLC; Commerce 1810 LLC; Twentieth Ave Property LLC | Easy internal mapping; looks like simple holding entity to outsiders. |
| Function-named | BG Main Property LLC; BG West LLC; Storage Works LLC; Park Place Center LLC | Generic enough to obscure ownership when listed in property records. |
| Initials/holdings | BCD Holdings; CDK Holdings; DP2 Properties; Huston Demsky | No name pattern match; no obvious connection to "Maddox" or "Spiller." |
| Parent corporate | MIT Washington Real Estate LLC; MIT Holdings LLC (ghost) | Layered above operational LLCs. The ghost parent (MIT Holdings) is filed in a non-WA jurisdiction. |
The vertical integration is complete. Spiller's network controls every layer of the development pipeline:
| Function | Entity | Principals |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing | Maddox Industrial Transformer LLC | Camden Spiller (CEO), Mac Spiller (CCO), Leon Bloomer (COO), Scott Hedgcock (Director of Strategic Investments) |
| Construction | Maddox Pro LLC (GC license MADDOPL756JD) | Charles Camden Spiller |
| Hospitality holding | Battle Ground Hospitality Collective | Camden + Mac Spiller (founded 2025) |
| Real estate (35+ LLCs) | BG PROPERTY series, BG GRACE series, address-named LLCs, holdings | Camden Spiller / Scott Hedgcock |
| Religious anchor | First Presbyterian Church of Battle Ground | Camden Spiller on board; C.R. Wiley pastor |
| National policy/intellectual | American Reformer (Dallas, TX 501c3) | Camden Spiller as Director (uncompensated) |
| Layer | Captured? | Mechanism | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| City Mayor | YES | Maddox employee elected | Eric Overholser (Production Operations Manager) |
| Deputy Mayor | YES | Married to Maddox employee | Aimee Vaile |
| City Council vote (Ord 2025-14) | YES | Unanimous, with Overholser voting | Fall 2025 ordinance |
| Mayoral proclamations | YES | Christian fast-tracked, LGBTQ+ blocked | Pride 2024 denied, NDOP 2026 approved |
| Council invocations | IN MOTION | Vote to "discuss" adding | May 5, 2026 |
| City facade grants | YES | Geographic boundary aligns with Spiller cluster | $50k program opened May 1, 2026 |
| School Board (1+ of 5) | YES | Maddox employee elected | Christopher Grewell, District 3 |
| School Board oversight | IN MOTION | Policy 1821 rescission attempt | Feb 2026 (delayed) |
| High School faculty | YES (functionally) | Termination + chilling effect | Gonzales case + on-record self-censorship |
| Real estate (Old Town) | YES | 35+ LLCs, 31 parcels, $41.2M | Documented on map |
| Hospitality | YES | Bakery, farmers market, taphouse, +1 | BG Hospitality Collective |
| Construction services | YES | In-house GC | Maddox Pro LLC |
| Religious anchor | YES | Spiller on FPC board | First Presbyterian Battle Ground |
| National policy/intellectual | YES | Spiller on board | American Reformer |
| Doug Wilson connection | YES | Speaking + publishing + podcasting ties | Canon Press, NSA College |
| Public dissent | YES (silenced) | Fear factor documented | Multiple residents won't speak on record |
| Federal procurement | NO | Not in scope | Only $851k over 9 years |
Camden Spiller is on the board of First Presbyterian Church of Battle Ground (Presbyterian Church in America denomination). The pastor, C.R. Wiley, is operationally connected to Doug Wilson, the Moscow, Idaho pastor who has spent 50 years building an explicitly Christian-nationalist municipal-capture project around Christ Church and the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).
The Wilson connections are documented:
Spiller is also a Director (uncompensated) of American Reformer (EIN 87-0851385), a Dallas-registered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt since March 2022. The organization has operated at sustained losses since founding (~$1.2M cumulative deficit through 2024) and reported conflict-of-interest transactions in its 2024 990 (Schedule L) — a flag worth direct review. Co-directors include Aaron Renn (author of Life in the Negative World), Chris Buskirk (publisher of American Affairs), and co-founder Nathaniel Fischer.
The Battle Ground project at year 6-7 is moving faster on government capture than Moscow, Idaho did at the same stage. Moscow took 50 years to reach its current state of downtown control; Battle Ground has captured the mayoral office, deputy mayor, school board seat, and a unanimous council ordinance within seven years using a corporate-vehicle approach (Maddox as the asset-acquisition entity, supplemented by the church) instead of Moscow's church-membership approach.
The CREC has approximately 170 churches worldwide. Each is a potential node for the Moscow / Battle Ground model. Two of the three founding CREC churches were in Washington State (Trinity Bellevue and Wenatchee Evangelical Fellowship) and may have similar property/business networks not yet documented. Battle Ground is the second documented instance of this model. There will be a third.
Investigative integrity requires naming the entities that turned out NOT to be what we initially thought. These were surfaced in early forensic passes but resolved as unaffiliated:
The investigation continues. These are the well-defined follow-up questions for the next round: