Wow, Kevin Sheekey Is Everywhere!

Right, the bike lane, of course:

The rabbi at the center of an investigation into a bar mitzvah that was held at a New York City jail last year had three scheduled meetings in the last four months of 2008 with Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, the man in charge of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s political operation, records show.

Official calendars for Mr. Sheekey show that he met with the rabbi, Leib Glanz, for a half-hour on Sept. 4, an hour on Oct. 27 and an hour on Dec. 15. The reasons for the meetings are not spelled out on the schedules, and no one else is listed as being present. But in one meeting, Mr. Sheekey appears to have traveled to Rabbi Glanz’s neighborhood in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, meeting at 2 p.m. at a catering hall.

The city’s Department of Investigation is trying to determine whether Rabbi Glanz misused his position as a chaplain with the Department of Correction to arrange a bar mitzvah celebration for an Orthodox Jewish inmate in December. Rabbi Glanz is a prominent figure in the Satmar Hasidic community who has broad ties to law enforcement and state and city political figures, and has, according to one senior city official, sometimes billed himself as having great political influence, even extending into the mayor’s office.

Stu Loeser, the mayor’s chief spokesman, said that the rabbi’s meetings with Mr. Sheekey focused on community issues like housing and traffic. One topic, for instance, was the Bloomberg administration’s creation of bicycle lanes on the Brooklyn waterfront.