In November of 2011, Cabrera emailed Salerno concerning a request from Jihad Rashid, the vice president of the Coconut Grove Village West Homeowners’ and Tenants’ Association. Jihad asked that Cabrera attend the association’s executive committee meeting.

Cabrera emailed Salerno at the time, “Please follow up appropriately” and said he returned a phone call placed by Rashid.

Tuesday, he said he did not attend the meeting because it could violate future quasi-judicial hearings on the issue, in which he would have to vote.

The minutes of the December 2011 meeting show an exchange between Cabrera and Salerno in which Salerno said, “We acted on that immediately…You said, here it is, take care of it. We did. We advised the developer of the request and suggested that they make contact with the head of the homeowners’ association and discuss and brief them. We are not the applicant in that project.”

On Tuesday, Salerno addressed Cabrera’s charges.

“You chose subsequently to attack me for not doing my job and for doing nothing and you knew when you asked that I had,” Salerno said. “And I think you went beyond that, trying to make me look bad and make this commission and the city look bad.

“With all due respect, you were invited to the meeting with the residents. I have the email. You have the email. If you really cared about those Grove residents you would have gone to the meeting instead of telling me to handle it — which I did. And you didn’t criticize me when I told you what I was doing. You criticized me after the fact. Furthermore, you had two opportunities to raise questions about the plans and developer’s intentions to secure a site in the city of Miami when it came before you for votes on first and second readings — but you sat silent.”

Cabrera stood by his comments.

Anderson complained the discussion had gotten out of hand.

“I want to stop this,” she said. “This is intolerable and not because five months ago I asked for his [Salerno’s] resignation, but intolerable that someone sits as equal to us.”

Cason adjourned the meeting.

In other business, the commission listened to Dade Medical College’s appeal of a Board of Architects’ denial over a sign the college wishes to place above the sixth floor of the building it will occupy in February at 95 Merrick Way.

The sign would still have to be approved by the city’s Planning and Zoning board. The commission voted 4-1 to continue the discussion at its February meeting.

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