A group of four Battle Ground citizens raised concerns about alleged discrepancies in Mayor Eric Overholser’s proclamations, later in the week, saying he has already denied a Pride Month proclamation.
During the Monday, May 4 Battle Ground Council meeting, Overholser read three proclamations: Police Week, Building Safety Month, and National Day of Prayer — which was contested in public comment that immediately followed the proclamation readings. The contested prayer proclamation recognizes May 7 as the National Day of Prayer, which reads: “… call upon all residents to join with millions of Americans across this nation in observing this day through prayer, reflection, and participation in community gatherings of faith.”
The National Day of Prayer is an annual day of observance designated by the United States Congress and held on the first Thursday of May. Deacon Becky Manning from Northwest Gospel Church accepted the proclamation by Overholser.
Later in the May 4 meeting, Councilor Victoria Ferrer requested adding an invocation discussion to a future agenda.
“It seems good since we had the proclamation read, and it talked about ‘the new nation was called to prayer,’” Ferrer said. “So I thought maybe this would be a good time to maybe bring up this discussion. To see if that’s something this council is interested in.”
Sean Mumford, the city’s acting attorney, said shortly after further discussion that adding invocation to the city council’s meetings is something that would need to be “studied carefully and implemented carefully.”
In a 5-1 consensus vote via thumbs-up or thumbs-down, councilors approved continuing discussions on the topic, with councilor Shane Bowman casting a no vote. Bowman was absent during the opening portion of the meeting, while councilor Troy McCoy was absent the entirety of the meeting.
Jessica Cole, a local activist and president of Evoke Cascadia, who delivered a public comment during the May 4 meeting, said in an interview with The Reflector that she first noticed similarities between the National Day of Prayer proclamation and the 2025 Pride proclamation while reviewing the documents ahead of the May 4 city council meeting. When comparing the two proclamations, Cole found what she described as repeated wording and structure, like the same number of paragraphs at nine total.
“There is, except for the first and the last (paragraphs), much of all the rest are like a lot of verbatim wording, but then there’s some swapping out like where we put, ‘queer people,’ they put, ‘people of faith,’” Cole said. “Where we put, ‘discrimination and harassment,’ they put, ‘pressure,’ where we put, ‘safety,’ they put, ‘the ability to live and work according to their convictions.’ Where we put, ‘hate and violence,’ they put, ‘erosion for religious liberty,’ where we put, ‘inclusion,’ they put, ‘conscience.’”
Cole also discussed previous attempts to secure proclamations recognizing the transgender community in Battle Ground. Cole said the International Transgender Day of Visibility proclamation request was sent on February 14 and denied on Feb. 20.
“Earlier this year, you know, I followed the protocol with contacting, who I’m supposed to contact, making the request at least 30 days in advance, that’s the rule,” Cole said. “And within six days, we got a ‘No’ response.”
Cole said she later asked for clarification after the request for the Transgender Day of Visibility proclamation was denied.
“I said, ‘Could you please clarify the reason for this decision and the criteria used to determine whether proclamation requests are approved?’” Cole said, referring to an email conversation. “And then (Overholser’s) answer was, ‘I will refer to the governance coordination manual below and state that I will exercise my right to decline.’”
Cole, and others who spoke during the May 4 public comment period, said city leadership should represent all members of the community equally.
“There’s definite favoritism,” Cole said. “Someone who is a councilor, specifically the one who leads the council, the mayor, needs to be bringing the community together and building bridges and not showing favoritism to the groups that he’s part of.”
Cole alleges 2026 Pride Month proclamation was already denied
On Wednesday, March 6, Cole learned the fate of her requested Pride Month Proclamation for the June 1 Battle Ground City Council meeting.
After setbacks in 2024, in 2025 a Pride Month proclamation was read by then-mayor Troy McCoy. However, for 2026, Cole alleges the current Mayor, Eric Overholser has already denied a Pride Month proclamation for the June 1 meeting, sent on April 22. Cole said she received the denial in an email from the city clerk on Wednesday, May 6, which comes after the requested 30-day submittal window for proclamations.
According to prior reporting by The Reflector, in June 2024, Councilors Eric Overholser, Tricia Davis and Victoria Ferrer voted to remove the Pride Month proclamation from the agenda, calling it "controversial." Although they were in the minority, city policy at the time allowed three councilors to pull a proclamation from the meeting, which sparked backlash from residents and other council members.
Cole said the denied Pride Month proclamation was practically identical to the Women’s History Month proclamation, except for seven edits. Cole said edits included changing ‘women’ to ‘LGBTQ’ and ‘March’ to ‘June.’
When looking over the two proclamations provided by Cole, the Pride Month request includes verbatim phrases and length, as does the Women’s History Month proclamation that was read and signed by Overholser during the March 2 city council meeting.
Due to a conflict in timing, The Reflector and Overholser were unable to connect by press time for an interview regarding the claims made by Cole and other community members.
Public commenter references investigative article by Oregon Public Broadcasting
The heated public comment period and alleged double standards in proclamation requests follow an Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) investigative article published on April 30 titled “A Christian vision for Battle Ground.”
The article by OPB outlines how Maddox Industrial Transformer associates and businesses under its umbrella are connected to Christian movements.
Missy Fant, who spoke during public comment, referred to the OPB article, saying, “The community is catching on. Recent reporting from OPB exposed the influence of Maddox Industrial and its ties to white Christian nationalism here in Battle Ground.”
“When city officials, some connected with Maddox, fast-track religious proclamations, and kill pride proclamations, the evidence speaks for itself,” Fant continued. “This isn’t just a perception, it’s a documented pattern. This is no longer a secret agenda. You are using the city’s power to signal that only one kind of person belongs here.”
Overholser, who is a Maddox employee, was interviewed in a 2023 podcast series titled “The Battle Ground Project,” which is described as: “The Battle Ground Project is an experiment in Christian localism. The hosts, C.R. Wiley and Max Booth (Maddox community engagement and development manager), live and work in Battle Ground. Through interviews, they explore ways that Christians are contributing to the Battle Ground community.”
At the time of the podcast, Mayor Overholser was a candidate for Battle Ground City Council.
The podcast series also interviewed Maddox CEO Camden Spiller and current Battle Ground councilor Victoria Ferrer, who was a candidate at the time of the podcast.
The podcast’s audio appears to have been removed from every listed website.
In March, Spiller submitted a commentary essay to The Reflector explaining that his investments in Battle Ground — which include over 30 properties owned by corporations affiliated with Spiller, according to publicly accessible property records — are rooted in faith.
“The third, and most personal, reason we choose to invest in Battle Ground is rooted in our faith. One of the most influential Bible verses in my life comes from the book of Jeremiah: ‘Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you,’” Spiller says in his commentary.
“Whether or not you share our faith, our community is strengthened when we each, in our own ways, seek the peace and prosperity of the place we share.”
Wiley is listed as the senior pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Battle Ground. The church is set to use the church building being built in the Battle Ground Village on property owned by an LLC under Spiller’s umbrella titled “Battle Ground Village Property LLC,” and is also referred to as a Maddox-affiliated company during an August 2025 Battle Ground City Council workshop session. Spiller is also a board member of Wiley’s church.
According to the OPB article, Spiller is also listed as a director of American Reformer, an evangelical Christian nonprofit with a mission to “promote a vigorous Christian approach to the cultural challenges of our day.” Wiley is on its advisory board.
According to OPB, Wiley, in 2023, relayed his church’s projects and visions in Battle Ground during a conference at the Evangelical Reformed Church in Tacoma with a sermon titled, “Building culture on a ‘Battle Ground.’”
“What we, as Presbyterians and people who belong to the reformed tradition, bring to the larger church are the resources of a public theology that helps us to govern unbelievers," Wiley said in the sermon, as reported by OPB.
The OPB article also quotes Wiley saying, “If we’re going to have a mature approach to public governance, we need to think about what it means to be in charge when there are some people who don’t agree with us.”
