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After a year of fighting the permissive off-leash policy in City parks, a Queens civic association continued to resist Parks Dept. plans to allow dogs to be off their leashes.

The Juniper Park Civic Association took one more bite at the proposed policy last Thursday at a Parks Department public hearing, the final step in solidifying the City’s off-leash guidelines into written law.

The group’s strong resistance has also culminated in accusations from off-leash proponents that fraudulent signatures were added to the civic’s online petition regarding the matter.

The JPCA in Middle Village unsuccessfully sued the Parks Dept. last year, citing that the off-leash law, which would permit owners to unfetter their dogs in City parks from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m., was illegal and posed a health threat. The New York City Department of Health disagreed and a state Supreme Court judge ruled against JPCA.

Yet the JPCA remained undeterred at Thursday’s meeting that drew dog owners, animal and park advocates and civic leaders.

“Who will take moral responsibility for the next dog bite?” said Manny Caruana, a JPCA member who spoke at the Chelsea Recreation Center during the public hearing.

He said as a dog owner he would never unleash his dog, because “you cannot control your dog when it’s not on a leash.”

The hearing was held so community members could present suggestions on how to clarify the law. Advocates said signs in the parks are necessary to indicate off-leash hours and areas of exclusion, like bridle paths and tennis and basketball courts.

Rick Duro is a member of the Sunnyside United Dog Society, a group of 100 dog owners that began in 2001 with small, informal meetings in Torsney Park on Skillman Avenue.

Duro spoke in favor of the law and suggested community liaisons between neighborhoods and the Parks Dept. to ensure the law is properly enforced.

He said while individual communities should play a prominent role in parks—SUDS was instrumental in getting a dog run approved by Community Board 2. He said the leash law is too crucial to leave to community boards.

“I don’t think it would be fair when you have community boards deciding everything,” he said, using the hypothetical example of community boards that want to eliminate alternate side parking by promising to keep the streets clean themselves. The fight JPCA started, Duro said, helped clearly define the decision-making power of the Parks Dept.

He said giving the Parks Dept. the authority to regulate the off-leash law would prevent a few members of the community from seizing control of an issue that involves every City park.

Still, JPCA believes it knows what’s best for its neighborhood.

“We are the voice of reason in the marketplace, of the zealous with screwed up priorities,” Lorraine Sciulli, vice-president of the JPCA, said in a phone interview on Monday.

Some question that “voice of reason,” particularly after Duro and several off-leash advocates discovered that names were being added in what they termed a suspicious manner to the JCPA-sponsored online petition Feb. 18.

Duro said the number of names jumped from about 2,100 to 4,000 that Sunday. He said the most compelling evidence of fraud was a computer code in the last signature box that indicated the names may have been plopped into the petition from an Excel spreadsheet.

Bob Marino, president of the NYC Council of Dog Owner Groups, contacted iPetitions, the company that operates the petition Web site, when he noticed the huge leap in names and suspicious jargon. He received about 10 e-mails from dog owners who also saw the sudden increase.

iPetitions responded in an e-mail to Marino and stated that “all fraudulent signatures have been removed from the petition and at this point we have several ‘abuse’ filters activated so I can assure you that this petition will not receive more phony signatures.” More than 4,000 signatures were expunged.

The petition disappeared from the Web site last Friday, but not before Councilman Dennis Gallagher (D-Middle Village) learned his name was included without his knowledge.

His name appeared in a cluster with J. Cimino, possibly Joe Cimino, president of the Middle Village Maspeth Civic Association, and Gabe Tapalaga, the JPCA attorney in the off-leash case.

Marino said although he’s not 100 percent certain that the Dennis Gallagher on the petition refers the Councilman, he thinks there may be a connection, because Gallagher’s name appears near Tapalaga’s name, who is a close friend of his.

With the exception of an anti-flag-burning petition several years ago, “I have never signed on to an electronic petition,” Gallagher said in a phone interview. “It’s unfortunate someone committed this fraud.”

His name, however, was not in the pool of names iPetitions deleted.

But Gallagher still believes his signature was misused.

He said he was “shocked” and “upset” to learn his signature may have been added without his permission, and added that there should be an investigation into who is responsible.

The JPCA said even though they sponsored the petition, they did not rig the names. Sciulli acknowledged that some of the names were bogus, but said JPCA is the victim.

“I don’t put anything past the dog-off-leashers,” she said. “We feel they are a fringe people and they don’t speak for all of New York City.”

As for the possibility that JPCA’s reputation might be damaged because of the spurious petition, Sciulli is confident it would remain intact.

She said she is still optimistic about their cause.

“The fight has just begun as far as we are concerned,” she said. “We won’t rest until all the dogs are leashed.”

The Parks Dept. is expected to decide within the next 30 days on ratification of the rule. Following that, it will send the ratified amendments to the City’s corporation counsel for approval. Once approved, the ratified amendments will be published in the City Register and 30 days following that the amendments that formally codify the Off-leash Hours policy will become official NYC Parks regulations. The whole process could be completed as early as April.