COLUMBUS — The chief executive of the Central Ohio Transit Authority has spoken publicly for the first time about the abrupt departure of the executive hired to lead the agency’s LinkUS transit expansion initiative, saying a leadership change was needed to keep the program on track.
Dorinda McCombs left the LinkUS program in April after just seven months on the job. In an interview with the Columbus Dispatch published Friday, COTA CEO Monica Téllez-Fowler said McCombs’ leadership style differed from what the authority expected of her and that she did not fit what the organization needed.
The comments shed new light on an exit that had previously been explained in sparing terms. After McCombs’ departure, Téllez-Fowler told her leadership team in an internal email that “it has become clear that a leadership change is necessary to ensure alignment on how the program is delivered,” according to records obtained by the Dispatch through an Ohio Public Records Act request.
Those same records paint a more complicated picture. The Dispatch reported that COTA gave McCombs no official goals for 2025 when she joined the authority in September, and her performance review marked her as meeting expectations across five core competencies, including accountability, communication, customer service, problem-solving and teamwork.
The review also praised her early work, noting she “brought a real shift to program-wide focus versus corridor-by-corridor” and expressing optimism about moving into construction in 2026.
LinkUS is COTA’s long-planned initiative to expand high-capacity transit corridors across the Columbus region. The authority has not announced a permanent replacement to lead the program.
