First, it was Democrats who unleashed turmoil across Oakland County’s political scene for their allegedly unseemly and unethical rush to fill the county executive seat of the late L. Brooks Patterson.

This week, it’s a Republican drawing a charge of unethical dealing. Calls were growing for the resignation of Oakland County Commissioner Shelley Goodman Taub, a veteran Republican from Bloomfield Township, after Taub admitted to WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) that she’d sent a text to her commission colleagues that said “Delete! Delete! Delete! Now.”

The point of her text was to urge Taub's colleagues on the county board to erase their recent emails. That can be a criminal act if such deletions involve key categories of government correspondence, according to legal experts.

Taub’s goal evidently was to cover up messages by other commissioners on the 21-member county board as they considered backroom deals to choose a successor to Patterson. Taub’s text also said awkwardly, “You are about to receive FOA’s” — her way of saying that media and others were likely to submit requests to see the emails under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act, commonly abbreviated as FOIAs.

Deleting emails and otherwise destroying records of government activity so as to avoid FOIA requests is a violation of various state laws, according to legal experts.

A liberal advocacy group — Progress Michigan — called for Taub’s resignation, saying Taub had been “trying to hide public documents from the people of Oakland County, who deserve real accountability from their elected officials.”

Oakland County Treasurer Andy Meisner — a Democrat who months before Patterson’s death announced his intention to run for the office in 2020, and who strongly objected last week to the backroom rush to appoint his chief rival David Woodward, a Royal Oak Democrat — said he, too, felt Taub should resign.

“That strikes me as a sensible action, although I don’t believe it should preclude a possible criminal investigation” of Taub, Meisner said.

“The subject of her text was urging people to get rid of evidence around the …appointment. I just worry that this just casts a broader shadow over the entire process of democratically electing the next county executive. Her statement of criminal intent right on television is something you rarely see,” Meisner said.

Taub on Monday said she had no intention of resigning.

“When people tell the truth, this kind of thing can happen. The rest of my text was simply this. An attorney on my board said, ‘I’m not going to break the law.’ I wrote back, ‘I would never suggest to anyone to break the law.’

"I meant that if they had anything on their email that was nasty or a dirty joke or otherwise improper, they should delete it." she said.

Taub added, “Really, this is not my story. It’s the Democrats, looking for any excuse to throw Republicans under the bus after what they’ve been doing.” Taub represents Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills and a portion of Bloomfield Township. She has served on the board from 1993 to 2002 and from 2009 to the present.

The Michigan Attorney General’s Office said it would investigate if the matter were submitted by a local agency.

“While this may be a prosecutable offense, a complaint would need to be made to local law enforcement before any further action could take place. The Attorney General’s office would get involved only if and when we are requested by law enforcement,” said a spokeswoman in Lansing for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

Last week, the Democrats' rush to appoint triggered an outburst from Patterson’s family, with cries of “shame!” followed by an abrupt change of plans. The latest schedule puts off the process of considering applications to be appointed executive until Friday — one day after Patterson’s funeral, scheduled in Troy.

This week, it’s the Republicans' turn to be scrutinized, as both sides scramble to control the direction of county politics on a board of commissioners that now — with last week's resignation of Woodward — deadlocked at 10 Republicans to 10 Democrats.

L. Brooks Patterson: Oakland County executive dies after leading for a generation

Oakland County Executive:Democrats stumble at appointing successor to L. Brooks Patterson

Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com