As part of its new stadium deal with the city, the Yankees baseball club signed a community benefits agreement that included a stipulation: every year until 2046, the team will funnel $1.25 million ($800,000 in grants and $450,000 in tickets, merchandise and equipment) back into the Bronx community through a fund that would give the money to various nonprofit groups.

Now, 17 months after stadium construction began, none of those funds have made it back into the community.

But things are moving along swiftly after a New York Times story in mid-January criticized Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion for dragging his feet. It was Carrion who was supposed to set up a special seven-member panel that would administer the stadium fund.

Serafin Mariel, a Manhattan resident who works for New York National Bank, has been named chairman of the panel, called the New Yankee Stadium Community Benefits Fund, Inc., now an incorporated non-profit organization.

The rest of the board includes: Ronald Bailey, pastor for Love Gospel Assembly Church; Leo Martinez, executive director of Alliance for Community Services; Ted Jefferson, executive director of Bronx Shepherds Restoration Corporation; Roberto Crespo, director of Knock for Freedom; and Harold Silverman, an ex-judge.

Mariel said they will announce a seventh member of the board, a woman, on Thursday, when this paper hits the streets.

He added that the board has met twice already and will be receiving the funds as early as next week. Soon, Mariel said, the board hopes to give some of those funds to local little leagues.

The community benefits agreement with the Yankees was signed in 2006 by Yankee President Randy Levine, Carrion and council members Maria del Carmen Arroyo, Maria Baez and Joel Rivera.

Only del Carmen Arroyo has spoken about it (Carrion is now directing all questions about the fund to Mariel). She told El Diario that she and the other signatories on the agreement should take responsibility for the delay and, if she could do it over again, she would have first told the public that the process would not be very fast.

Other Bronx elected officials, including council members Oliver Koppell and Helen Foster (who represents Highbridge, the area around Yankee Stadium), said they had been left out of the loop while decisions about the fund were being made.

On Tuesday, however, Koppell said he was back in the loop and had met with the new board last week. He said he hoped some of the money would trickle into the north Bronx, but added that the idea is to limit political influence in the distribution of the funds.