Shane Bowman, the longest tenured Battle Ground City Council member, shared his perspective on damage that could be on the horizon caused by a majority of council members displaying partisanship in the non-partisan seat they represent in the early days of 2026.
“So far this year, I have seen a lot of politics,” Bowman said. “Pretty much, the two new council members that they got on, and the two that got on two years ago, have decided that they’re going to do what they want to do and the rest of us really don’t have a lot of say in it anymore. They made that known when the new mayor decided he wanted to be mayor.”
After Battle Ground’s newest mayor, Eric Overholser, was ultimately decided by a vote for himself in the first meeting of 2026, Bowman began to raise questions about internal operations on the city council. The next meeting was full of surprises as actions occurred that were not even on the agenda. Multiple committee changes were brought to the council that were not on the agenda for the Jan. 20 meeting.
Three Lodging Tax Advisory Committee (LTAC) appointments were slated for approval during that meeting. However, Deputy Mayor Aimee Vaile removed the LTAC appointments. According to previous reporting by The Reflector, several individuals were present to accept the appointments when the agenda item was pulled. Vaile, who also serves as the vice chair of the Clark County Republican Party, said in the Jan. 20 meeting that the city may have been applying state law governing LTAC membership too narrowly.
Mayor Overholser even expressed disappointment in Vaile’s amendment, but then voted in favor of it.
“I don’t trust him as mayor,” Bowman said. “I’ve seen too many times when things have gone different directions and he said he was thinking one way and then all of a sudden it’s another way, and it’s 100% political. It’s because he can’t go against the party. … He hasn’t shown me that he deserves the right to be mayor yet because he hasn't shown me he could be truthful, honest and do what’s right for the city.”
And then without public notice, council member Victoria Ferrer moved to amend the agenda a second time on the night, proposing to reopen appointments for all committees. The original agenda had focused on filling seats, either new representatives or alternates where terms were set to expire or where the seats were held by outgoing council members. The motion narrowly passed 4-3 with Bowman, Troy McCoy and Jeanie Kuypers opposing it.
Bowman said they kept McCoy and himself on certain committees because of their institutional knowledge, but were quick to remove the pair from a key committee.
“[They] removed us very quickly from the legislative committee and put on one person that’s brand new to council and has no connections or no relationships at all in Olympia or Washington, D.C., and, you know, the other one that’s only been there two years hasn’t done any lobbying as well,” Bowman said of Vaile and Ferrer replacing himself and McCoy on the legislative committee. “All it’s done is alienated us as a city from getting money from the state and the federal government potentially because of what they’ve done and politics they play. They’re very, very involved in the Republican Party.”
Bowman did add that if a majority on the council were involved with the Democratic Party, the same antics would be played, adding to what he said is the importance of serving all of a city’s community members in a non-partisan way.
With the state of Washington House and Senate being majority Democrat, Bowman said with Vaile’s local Republican Party status, and claims of a video of Overholser handing funds to the Republican Party, it doesn’t bode well for obtaining state tax dollars for projects.
“There has to be a relationship of trust there, right? And the sad part about it is you can’t go up and ask your mom and dad for money and then bad-mouth your mom and dad,” Bowman said. “And that’s exactly what happens is we have council members that have bad-mouthed the state Legislature or different parties and then go up there and want to get money back.”
Bowman added the city may be looking at only obtaining “crumbs” of tax dollars from the state in comparison to previous years.
“I know it’s already hurt us,” he said. “For a fact right now, it potentially has already cost us money for the downtown corridor. You know, these are people that had been very adamant in running or being opposed to our state senator (Adrian Cortes) who’s been up there fighting for stuff for the city of Battle Ground. But why do you fight for it if all you’re going to do is get stabbed in the back?”
The Reflector contacted Vaile for an interview regarding how she will keep her partisan status and non-partisan elected position separate, but Vaile did not respond by press time. Bowman believes Vaile holding the two positions raises a conflict of interest and may build a lack of trust from the community.
“If you’re not willing to vote against the party because it’s right for Battle Ground, that’s your conflict of interest, right?” Bowman said, adding that he is a Republican Precinct Committee Officer (PCO). “I’m a censured Republican PCO because I supported our current senator because he was the best one for the job, right? And so they supposedly censored me, but you can’t censure someone who doesn’t want to speak at your party. You can only censure me from speaking at your party, but I’m still a Republican PCO.”
Bowman said the Clark County Republican Party put $2,000 toward Vaile and councilor Brian Munson’s campaigns, as well as helped campaign for both.
“Well, guess what? The party expects you to vote how the party would vote, and that isn’t always what’s right for the city or how the city would necessarily vote because the Republican Party is anti-tax everything,” Bowman added.
Bowman further expanded on the “anti-tax everything” realm by questioning what would be the alternative. He added that so far he has not seen an alternative brought to the table in all his time on city council.
While still holding on to his Republican PCO status, Bowman mentioned he has received a mountain of criticism from the party he represents. With city council elections, he has never lost, and Bowman said he credits that to his efforts of being non-partisan in the seat representing the community.
“I’ve been challenged, but I’ve never been beaten,” he said. “The reason for that is because I can defend why we did it and the people that elected me to go there, elected me to go there and study everything out and make good, informed decisions.”
Ultimately, Bowman concluded that he believes the city will have a much harder time bringing resources back to the city in the form of state and federal money. He added that there may even be greater concern for the city as too much turmoil may cause staff members to abandon ship.
“We can look just to the north of us in Longview when they did their thing, and that’s where our city manager came from,” Bowman said. “A very political, very divided council. What happens normally, staff just says, ‘This isn’t what I want.’ You know, if the heads of your city can’t work for what’s right for the city and they’re worried more about a political party, then you start getting staff that says, ‘I'm going to go somewhere else.’”
Bowman highlighted the current city staff for Battle Ground, saying the city is lucky to have such good people in their positions.
“My biggest fear is that we start losing people because we start doing what we’re doing,” he said. “In my opinion, I don’t think some of our council members would care that we lost staff and that people go on and those are big checks to write because when we have people leave we’re writing out big checks for vacation days and sick leave and, heaven forbid, we force them to leave, then we’re writing even bigger checks.”
