‘Want to work with my team at Parra?’ Former CEO’s message to niece revealed at ICAC

The former City of Parramatta council boss offered her niece a job as personal assistant to the mayor over text message and warned that people would be looking for dirt on them both, according to evidence heard at the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Leah Senkowski, appearing on the 13th day of the commission’s public inquiry into three of the council’s top staff, said she had worked at Boost Juice, Caltex and H&M before commencing in different operations and accounts roles at Pinot & Picasso, a company offering paint and sip events.

In April 2025, she texted her aunt, then-council boss Gail Connolly, asking for “any connections or direction” to look into for finding PA work.

Six minutes later, Connolly responded: “Want to work with my team at Parra? We have a vacancy – PA to the Lord Mayor.”

Senkowski was excited about the prospect of working in Parramatta, although did not think at the time she would be working in her aunt’s office, she said. “I didn’t have much, or any, local government experience and didn’t know much about politics or anything of the kind, and it was, yeah, confronting.”

Connolly called her niece soon after and advised the role would be “quite full on” given the lord mayor was “a very important man”, Senkowski said. She assumed she would go through a proper application process, she said.

Instead, she was told by Connolly that she would have a coffee with Roxanne Thornton, who by that point was the group manager of the office of lord mayor and CEO. “Be relaxed but professional,” Connolly texted Senkowski before the meeting. “Roxy is very easy to talk too [sic]. And don’t talk shit about me!!”

Connolly later told her to lock down her social media profiles. “Once you start at council everyone will be looking for dirt on you/me to end our employment. (Occupational hazard I’m afraid!)”

Emails aired at the commission also show Senkowski’s resumé was sent to Connolly’s private email address. In emails signed off “Aunty G”, Connolly told Senkowski she’d informed Thornton that she was on an $80,000 salary, so negotiations would begin at that rate. Senkowski told the commission she was on a $70,000 salary before beginning at the council.

Senkowski had “assumed that everything in the back end would be done correctly”, she told the commission. Thornton soon texted her that a new position had been approved, budgeted for and placed in the council’s system. After advertising the job internally for a week in May, Thornton planned to shut applications on Friday, May 16, and have Senkowski start the following Monday, Counsel Assisting Clare Palmer SC told the inquiry.

On the Friday, Senkowski was still waiting to be told the job title, position description, and salary. Thornton pushed the job start back by two days.

“Did you feel at the time that this was a job that was being created for you in light of what you needed, [in light of your desired] salary, in light of your netball commitments at night, in light of the past experience that you had, and your desire to work in local council?” Palmer asked.

“I don’t think it was created for me,” Senkowski said. “I think there was a need in that area for support. There was someone that was on extended leave or sick leave or something, and … I don’t think they were sure if she was coming back.”

Senkowski ended up being employed as a secretariat support officer at the council instead of the mayor’s personal assistant. She remains employed by the council.

Executive director appointed friend to custom role, ICAC hears

The ICAC also heard that Michelle Carter, an events manager who had failed a job application at the City of Parramatta was then expedited into a senior position by her friend Angela Jones-Blayney.

The pair had worked together at Ryde Council before Jones-Blayney was appointed to an executive director position at the council, which the ICAC previously heard was a “charade” process after Thornton provided Jones-Blayney with the interview questions.

Carter, Jones-Blayney, Thornton and Connolly were all members of the Pink Ops, a social group made up of current or former City of Ryde staff. Despite them going on multiple weekends away (one in Ultimo and one in Patonga, on the Central Coast), the commission being shown selfies of the group drinking wine and Moët & Chandon together and text exchanges of them organising catch-ups at each other’s homes, Carter said she did not consider Jones-Blayney to be a friend to the extent required by a conflict of interest disclosure.

“I considered her a mentor,” she said.

She was sent a position description by Jones-Blayney for the event she would eventually fill and then made edits to it.

“Probs just don’t send the one with my marked changes on it because it will list my name as the one who made the changes,” she texted Jones-Blayney in October 2023.

Counsel Assisting Joanna Davidson SC put it to Carter that she was concerned it would be revealed she was being directly appointed to the role she had a hand in creating.

“I’d updated it on her behalf, and she was passing it on as though she had made those changes,” Carter said.

Jones-Blayney will appear before the commission on Thursday.