Former longtime Senate Education Committee Chairman John Goedde of Coeur d’Alene has been hired by Gov. Butch Otter to work on the Idaho Education Network project through this year’s legislative session, the Coeur d’Alene Press reports today. Goedde has a flat-fee $4,000-a-month contract with the governor’s office to work as part of a team trying to save the troubled network, for which the original contract has been declared illegal.

“I would like to see this project through. It is near and dear to my heart," Goedde told Press reporter Jeff Selle. “Once we have something, it will be my job to sell it to the Legislature." Selle’s full report is online here.