To whom it may concern. On the evening of May 21st, 2025, at the regular meeting of the Tanana Valley State Fair Association’s Board of Directors, the subject of the “Glam!” show featuring performers in Drag was once again broached. During the public comment portion of the meeting, Tanana Valley State Fair Association employee David Leslie was speaking about the subject of the Glam show, it’s poor handling and the lack of accountability by the TVSFA board when addressing the supposed ‘cancellation’ of the show. During David’s admittedly emotionally charged testimony, board VP John Tiemessen rose from his seat to adopt an imposing posture and aggressively raised his voice to speak over David – and then when he was called out for interrupting assigned time for public comment by David, Mr. Tiemessen then implied a threat to David’s job due to the emotional nature of David’s statements and dismissively said “You can have twenty extra seconds, if you want” in lieu of an apology – completely ignoring the accuracy of David’s statements about the duplicitous way the Glam show was cancelled with no meeting about the cancellation on record. It was clear to me at least that Mr. Tiemessen threatened David to avoid acknowledging the Board’s failings.
Let me be unequivocally clear; tone policing by Mr. Tiemessen of David Leslie was inappropriate and unprofessional by itself – interrupting designated time allotted for public testimony is an additional strike of unprofessional conduct – but to lose his temper and threaten a person’s livelihood because they are sharing an uncomfortable, emotionally-charged truth during their designated time to speak is inconceivable. I have been involved in community organizations since my youth, having attended the Alaska Legion Boys State and served formally and informally in several local and national non-profit organizations over decades, I am familiar with Robert’s Rules of Order, Parliamentary Procedure and the general acceptable level of decorum expected during professional operations.
I did not see any of that with Mr. Tiemessen. He was oblivious during the opening land acknowledgement, paying more attention to shifting his papers than the statements being shared, and was visibly distracted through much of the public testimony – scrolling through his phone or loudly clicking his pen. Not only did he interrupt David Leslie’s testimony but also chose to interrupt another speaker: Dandhi’on Hartman, another community organizer that had signed up to speak on the matter of the Glam show.
When I spoke, I was not interrupted. I was passionate about the subject – but my privilege as a mostly-cisgender white male affords me the patience to be even-toned and speak in a controlled way. Mr. Tiemessen visibly bristled as I informed the Board that I had previously attended the fair and walked the midway many times in full costume, but he did not feel moved to speak over me for some reason. As someone who is not as directly impacted by the poor decisions of the board, poor decisions which emboldened bigots to express hateful attitudes towards the LGBTQIA+ community with the belief that the TVSFA supported their views, I have a layer of protection that David doesn’t. I can afford to speak calmly and count my breaths – David, who has been subject to online harassment due to the Glam! Show, cannot. It takes a special type of hypocrite to sit through an acknowledgement of living on unceded tribal lands and then speak over a queer descendent of these land’s original stewards because Mr. Tiemessen may feel David’s emotions make him “insubordinate.” Objectively, how dare he.
David’s emotions were appropriate for someone that has had to live with the real-world consequences of the Board’s choices and relevant to the subject matter under discussion. Even as discussion on the possibility of having a drag event proceeded beyond public comments, Mr. Tiemessen made statements that the planning period from now until the Fair was too close for drag entertainers to coordinate an event – a subject he has no experience with, yet he felt entirely qualified to speak on with authority. His repeated insistence that ‘it’s too close to plan anything’ was an attempt to dismiss any proposed inclusion of drag at the fair.
As a member of the Tanana Valley State Fair Association with an ample background of community service, I question the logic of allowing someone like Mr. Tiemessen to operate from a position of authority within an organization that oversees an event of such great community importance and manages such a wide array of community resources. My confidence in his ability to effectively serve the interests of the entire Fairbanks community and navigate the policies and procedures in TVSFA’s operations was further eroded when he was unable to tell the difference between types of financial account reporting and could not be bothered to learn said difference before dismissing those distinctions and treating the terms as synonymous. Such a cavalier attitude is not indicative of a good faith effort in accountable reporting, especially from someone practicing law and should be fully cognizant that specific words are used to convey specific meanings.
In the future, it may be in the best interests of the TVSFA board to address Mr. Tiemessen’s conduct as it occurs. While I understand that the Board president was caught off guard and the prospect of dealing with charged confrontation naturally presents a momentary crisis of judgment, I believe that swift reaction to misconduct by a board member during Board proceedings would go a long way towards rebuilding public confidence in the Tanana Valley State Fair Association.
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This post was originally shared on social media on May 22nd, 2025. It is reshared here for archival purposes while Blog functions transition from facebook to my private domain. Keep your eyes peeled, there will be more of these ;)
- B
Bianca Fusion 