Laura Mollo wanted her hometown of Richlands, Virginia to be a safe, secure place for her young family. She turned to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to bring about change.
By Christopher Tyree
Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO
Laura Mollo moved her family back to her hometown, Richlands, Virginia, looking for a safe, small town to raise her two children.
Mollo, 41, remembered the farming and coal mining community in southwest Virginia, nestled along the Clinch River, as lively and charming. She and her husband, Rocky, left Indiana in 2014 to move next door to her mother.
But soon, Mollo’s optimism faded. Potholes dotted streets and once-bustling buildings stood empty. The vibrancy she remembered had vanished.
“It was kind of heartbreaking because it wasn’t the place that I left…I didn’t expect things to stay completely the same but I did expect us to be advancing,” she said. “I was kind of wondering, ‘Did I make a mistake?’”
Mollo and her husband kept a low profile, paying their bills and taxes, voting regularly but not engaging deeply in civic matters.
One night, Mollo and her family played a prank at her mother’s house by opening all the cabinets and drawers. When her mother returned and saw the mess, she thought someone had broken in and called 911. The 911 operator told her the call would be transferred to the local police. She was put on hold. Mollo soon learned that Richlands was the last town in Virginia without 911 service.
Mollo, a stay-at-home mom with a playground, trampoline and pool in her backyard, worried about her children’s safety. “Anything could go wrong,” she said.
When she asked Richlands Town Councilmembers about the lack of 911 service, she said,“they got very upset with me.”
It triggered her curiosity about her local government, and led her to learn about a citizen's most powerful civic tool – the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
Mollo brings a clipboard decked out with stickers, that reference her work with FOIA, to the Richlands Town Council meetings where she now sits on the board.
The code of Virginia stipulates that meetings and public records be open and available to the public unless there is a specific exemption. Virginia citizens and news organizations can request documents from state and local governments. There is typically a cost associated with providing the requested materials.
Mollo’s first FOIA request? A list of the town’s police officers.
In Virginia, FOIA requests must be answered within five business days, but Mollo said her request was ignored by both the town council and the town manager.
Mollo contacted Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. The nonprofit, established in 1996, guides people through their FOIA rights, tracks changes in the law and important court cases.
With Rhyne’s guidance, Mollo contacted the town’s attorney. She soon discovered that the mayor’s son—who also served on the town council—was a police officer, yet wasn’t recusing himself from decisions involving the police department. One of Mollo’s key concerns was why the town refused to let the Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office, which handled 911 dispatch for surrounding areas, manage Richlands’ calls.
“I started to think there was a conflict of interest.”
Mollo was often the only citizen attending town council meetings.
“You don't have to be the smartest or the wealthiest, you don't have to be some part of an elite group that's invited to take part in the activities of the government that everyone is able to and should be able to come to these meetings and stay involved.”
She shared notes from the meetings on Facebook and continued submitting FOIA requests, particularly regarding the town’s slow emergency response system.
One request revealed a chilling 911 call, according to Mollo. A woman whose husband had collapsed called the Tazewell County 911 dispatcher. The county dispatcher put the woman on hold while she tried to reach Richlands authorities. When the town dispatcher finally answered, she told the distraught woman, “Can you hold on? Because it’s been really busy this morning,” Mollo recounted.
The call and time spent on hold lasted 48 minutes. Later that day, the 911 county dispatcher called the woman back. “I was thinking about your call,” the dispatcher said. “How did it turn out? Is your husband okay?” The woman told her that her husband died before Richlands emergency workers arrived.
It hit Mollo: The delay caused by transferring calls from 911 to Richlands was a life-and-death issue.
As she became more informed, Mollo grew more determined to hold her local government accountable. At one town council meeting, she refused to leave the podium until they agreed to invite the county sheriff to discuss the 911 situation. By one vote, the council approved the discussion.
Mollo submitted over 1,000 public records requests in three and a half years, racking up roughly $5,000 in fees. She also discovered that the town hadn’t been paving the streets with money received from the Virginia Department of Transportation and that the town was facing other financial problems.
Today, the mayor, police chief, and entire town council have been replaced, and Richlands has turned over its 911 operations to the county. A new placard sitting on the town council’s bench reads Laura Mollo. She won her council seat in 2022.
Flowers pots hang from street posts, a gleaming white gate surrounds a renovated bandstand where people dance on Saturday nights, and the parts of what made Richlands so rich to Mollo is returning.
“I’m proud of being able to say that we can call 911 now. And it stemmed from asking questions as a regular citizen,” Mollo said. “I'm living proof that you can stay engaged, find out what's going on and make the changes.”
Mollo plans to keep working to improve her hometown. “I kind of lived in this fantasy world – that all elected officials were doing the right thing and checks and balances would catch them if they did something wrong,” she said. ”And then I realized, we are the checks and balances. The people are the checks and balances system.
“We need to be watching our elected officials, talking to them, staying informed, and voting. Especially locally because our local elections will have a bigger day to day, immediate, impact on our lives than any other election.”
Editor’s note: Christopher Tyree is a board member of the Virginia Center for Open Government.
Reach Christopher Tyree at christopher.tyree@vcij.org.