THOMAS: Invest your trust in her

It seems as though a gentleman by the name of Steven D. Matheson has thrown his hat into the race for Kootenai County Treasurer in opposition to our current Chief Deputy Treasurer, Laurie Thomas, who has been on the job for 13 years.

On Feb. 21, 2014, Mr. Matheson wrote a letter to the Cd’A Press Editor insisting that the “County can do better investing for taxpayers,” and suggesting that the safe choices being made by the current treasurer’s office were somehow bad.

Mr. Matheson is the founder and managing principal of Steven Douglas LLC, an advisory firm specializing in derivatives and hedge funds. He was the Executive Director at JP Morgan’s Global Derivatives Product Group. He managed to leave JP Morgan right before the financial collapse of our economy. Analysts argue that derivatives actually caused the crash in ‘08. Mr. Matheson then started his own business in Hayden, Idaho.

After Mr. Matheson left JP Morgan, the Wall Street giant agreed to pay $228 million to federal and state agencies to settle charges that its employees manipulated the bidding process for municipal investments over an 8-year period.

Given Mr. Matheson’s scary background in investments, I’m not sure our “taxpayer money could do better” (as referenced in his political flyers). As taxpayers in Kootenai County, we send $220 million to the Treasurer’s office each year. I would personally have a heart attack writing a check to him.

TERRY STARKEY

Post Falls