The Reflector, a 117-year-old newspaper in Battle Ground, has new owners. Brothers and co-owners of a billion-dollar business Camden and Mac Spiller announced in a web post late Wednesday afternoon that they had purchased the town’s sole news outlet.

The sale immediately raised concern about the Spillers’ growing influence in Battle Ground from some community members on local social media pages.

The Spillers own Maddox Industrial Transformer, a fast-growing Battle Ground-based electrical infrastructure company whose sales have been fueled by the data center boom. They have purchased approximately 30 properties in town over the past several years, from Al and Ernie’s Bakery Cafe downtown to a 60-acre plot of land that’s slated to be the location of a new church and a convention center.

The Spillers’ purchases have also raised questions in Battle Ground because of Camden’s connections to religious groups, including people engaged in the “Christian localism” movement.

Camden Spiller did not respond to an interview request about the newspaper purchase. Separate interview requests to a public relations agency working on behalf of the Spillers were directed to an opinion piece for the website Clark County Today, where Camden emphasized his commitment to journalistic ethics.

“The Reflector will inevitably continue to include coverage relating to our family and our businesses and our various projects in the community,” Spiller wrote. “But I want to be clear that when that happens, it won’t be puff pieces or pulled punches. The coverage will disclose any potential conflicts and will not give us special treatment.”

In an un-bylined story on the Reflector’s website about why the brothers wanted to expand their businesses to include a media organization, Camden Spiller was quoted noting the precipitous decline of local newspapers in the U.S.

“We feel a sense of responsibility to support the next chapter of The Reflector at a time when the country is losing local newspapers at an astounding rate,” he said in the article.

The Reflector dates back to 1909 in Clark County. It changed hands over the years and was sold to Centralia, Washington-based CT Publishing in 2020.

The paper’s Battle Ground staff is made up of two reporters, one designer and two advertising employees.

According to the Spillers’ announcement, those employees will have to reapply for their jobs. The Spillers said the newspaper will take an approximately six-month hiatus after they transition ownership at the end of June.

It’s unclear whether the previous owners of the Reflector were trying to sell it before the Spiller’s purchase. The owners of CT Publishing, Chad and Coralee Taylor, did not respond to phone and email interview requests about the sale. The couple owns a number of other local newspapers, including the Centralia Chronicle and the Nisqually Valley News.

At a time when many newspapers are shrinking or closing across the country, CT Publishing expanded operations when it opened a new outlet called the Thurston Chronicle in late 2025. The editor-in-chief of CT Publishing, Eric Schwartz, also did not respond to an interview request.

Growing local influence

Camden Spiller’s ties to a conservative Christian movement, and the growing political influence of people who work at the company he leads, have raised questions among many in Battle Ground about his intentions for the community.

He is listed as a director of American Reformer, an evangelical Christian nonprofit that has published authors writing in favor of Christian nationalism, a system where the government and Christian faith are intertwined. The nonprofit hosts a fellowship for young professionals which it says is designed to “recapture existing institutions to bring them under the Lordship of Christ.”

A Christian vision for Battle Ground?

He also has connections to Doug Wilson, a Moscow, Idaho pastor and self-described Christian nationalist, who has said he wants to turn America into a Christian theocracy.

In addition to the properties Spiller and his brother have purchased in town, a number of the employees of their electrical transformer company have connections to or serve in local government.

Battle Ground Mayor Eric Overholser is a Maddox Industrial Transformer employee and Deputy Mayor Aimee Vaile’s husband works at Maddox. Chris Grewell, who works at Maddox, is on the Battle Ground Public Schools board.

Overholser has appeared prominently in recent issues of the Reflector, primarily because of his sponsorship of a series of polarizing city proclamations. One was a condemnation of Antifa-related violence while another was a statement supporting the actions of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

The mayor denied a proposed proclamation recognizing June as LGBTQ Pride month. At the upcoming June 15 city council meeting he will present a new proclamation focused on “recognition and celebration of Battle Ground’s traditional nuclear families.”

In its recent issues, the Reflector reported on all of those proclamations. The paper also covered Pride marches in the city and protest-filled city council meetings.

It’s unclear whether there will be any more issues of the Reflector before the paper goes on its temporary hiatus.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/06/11/controversial-battle-ground-business-owners-buy-communitys-only-newspaper/