It’s likely that a union petition drive is headed to court.

County officials said they plan to challenge signatures being collected by the Baltimore County Federation of Public Employees.

The union, which represents 911 operators, public health nurses and sheriffs’ deputies, is collecting the signatures in an effort to place a binding arbitration referendum for its members on the November ballot.

County firefighters and police are the only two unions in the county that have binding arbitration in labor disputes with the county.

In an Aug. 1 letter to attorneys representing the union, County Attorney John Beverungen wrote, “We intend to contest all signatures that have been fraudulently obtained.”

Beverungen’s letter, as well as a two-sentence response from the union attorney, were obtained by Patuxent Publishing Co., the publisher of this newspaper.

State election law prohibits signature collectors from misrepresenting “any fact for the purpose of inducing another person to sign or not sign a petition.”

“We have concrete evidence that the persons who are circulating these petitions are making material misrepresentations about the purpose and effect of the proposed charter amendment,” wrote Beverungen.

The union hired Portland, Ore.-based Democracy Resources to collect the 10,000 signatures required to place the initiative on the ballot. Representatives of the company have been telling registered voters that the ballot initiative would “help improve the working conditions of teachers” in the county.

“As you are no doubt aware, the proposed charter amendment would have no effect on the teachers, since they are Board of Education employees who are not covered by the amendment,” Beverungen wrote.

Jim Miller, president of the union, was out of the office and not available to answer a reporter’s questions, according to a woman who answered the phone at the union’s Towson office.

Miller, in a July 31 interview, blamed the message delivered by signature collectors on “confusion on the part of the company we hired, because the American Federation of Teachers are our parent organization with American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.”

He said there was no intent to mislead county voters.

Union attorney Keith Zimmerman’s response, also dated Aug. 1, was that Democracy Resources “was given explicit instructions on Aug. 1 to refrain from the use of any words that may confuse registered voters.”

A person collecting signatures for the petition later that day at the “Feet on the Street” block party in Towson, told a reporter the ballot question “would improve the working conditions of teachers and other county employees.”

The man acknowledged working for Democracy Resources, but quickly left when asked about how the petition represented teachers.

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