Without issuing a formal request for proposals, the Herkimer County Industrial Development Agency gave a marketing contract this winter to a public relations firm run by a former state assemblyman.

The funds come out of a $250,000 pot of money the county gave the agency to spend on marketing and development, an unprecedented amount for an organization that had traditionally received a fraction of that funding from Herkimer County each year.

With hundreds of thousands in tow, IDA officials say they don’t have a plan for how the money will be spent. The first contract they awarded from that funding went to Anthony J. Casale Public

Affairs of Cooperstown.

Anthony Casale also is a senior advisor for The Casale Group, run by his son Vincent out of the same office. That company worked on the 2009 election campaigns for three Republican county legislators, two of whom made and seconded the motion to give the IDA the $250,000 out of the county’s emergency account just days after legislators had approved a bare-bones county budget for 2010.

One of those legislators, John Piseck of Herkimer, is also IDA chairman.

Asked how Anthony Casale’s firm came to obtain the $4,500-a-month IDA contract, Piseck said no formal requests for proposals were issued. Instead, the contract was awarded following an unofficial search process that consisted of Google research and word-of-mouth suggestions, he said…

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