Dec. 29--The biggest political decision in the history of the Town of Riverhead will just have to wait for a few more days.

The town board was to have voted Friday on a contract to sell 750 acres of town-owned land at its Enterprise Park at Calverton to Riverhead Resorts for $155 million, with millions of dollars in additional payments while the project goes through reviews and a permitting process expected to take 23 to 36 months.

Instead, the board on Friday morning decided to put off its decision until Wednesday, when two current town board members will be off the five-member board and their replacements will have been sworn in.

Riverhead Resorts wants to build a resort center with eight separate themed areas, each with its own hotel and ability to attract daily visitors. The signature attraction is a man-made 350-foot indoor ski mountain.

Company officials have said that if they do not get the environmental approvals and necessary town code variances to build the huge mountain, they would modify the project and create a smaller winter sports resort.

"You will have a hotel resort at the terminus of the Long Island Expressway and the gateway to Eastern Long Island," said Riverhead Supervisor Phil Cardinale, a strong supporter of the sale who will vote in favor of it. Cardinale said he believes the contract has enough support on the board to be approved.

After a public hearing on Thursday in which outgoing town Councilman Ed Densieski and others in the audience urged that the vote not be made by a lame-duck town board but by the 2008 town board, Cardinale polled each of the four other board members privately on whether to put off the decision until the new board members take office.

The board unanimously voted to cancel its 2 p.m. meeting Friday and instead to put approval of the sale on the agenda for the first meeting of 2008, which will be held at 2 p.m. on Jan. 2 in Riverhead Town Hall.

Both new incoming town board members, Timothy F. Buckley and James M. Wooten, asked the town board on Thursday to put off its decision so they could review the proposed sale and have the opportunity to vote on it.

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