1,643 acres are on the ballot. Choose wisely.

In September 1998, Riverhead Town took ownership of 2,640 acres in Calverton that had been owned by the U.S. Navy as a manufacturing and testing facility. The Navy had leased the site to the Grumman Corporation, a defense contractor that, among other projects, built the F-14 Tomcat fighter jet there, and the Apollo Lunar Module that took our astronauts to the surface of the moon.

History was made at this site, but looking back, it’s hard not to conclude that in the last 25 years, numerous Riverhead Town administrations have thoroughly botched efforts to make something of the property that would benefit the town and the region as a whole.

The latest chapter in this long-running saga occurred last week, when the Town Board, during an emergency executive session, canceled a highly controversial contract to sell 1,643 acres at EPCAL to Calverton Aviation & Technology.

The hastily called session followed a meeting at which Riverhead’s Industrial Development Agency denied the developer’s application for financial assistance in the form of tax breaks. The IDA, to its credit, didn’t want to give away the store to an entity that it believed had failed to provide sufficient proof of its fiscal stability or of the viability and broader economic benefits of its proposal. 

Now, in the wake of these actions, comes the Nov. 7 election, when a new supervisor and two Town Board members will be picked. The future of these 1,643 acres will be in the hands of a new town government.

For Riverhead, that one fact makes this election one of the most consequential in decades. And regardless of who wins, the citizens groups that have pressed the town to cancel the CAT contract, raising alarm bells about the possibility of a cargo jetport on part of the site, must keep up the pressure.

Those activists should be enormously proud of their efforts, even if the cancellation came years after they had raised serious objections. But better late than never. 

On Tuesday, all Riverhead voters must decide who should be at the helm of a town that sits on this magnificent stretch of meadows and woodlands. Not that anyone has proposed this at any time since the town acquired the property, , but if that acreage were turned into a public park, it would be second in size on Long Island to Connetquot River State Park Preserve, which encompasses 3,473 acres. Since 1998, the area around the runways at EPCAL has been repeatedly proposed as a place for manufacturing. Proposals such as indoor ski facilities have also been floated.

One voter who wrote us wondered “how such a patently deficient application” held the support of current Riverhead officials for so long. “Millions and years have been wasted on this mess.”

Clearly, the fate of EPCAL is not the only challenge that will confront Riverhead’s incoming leaders: Housing density, water quality, climate change, crime, drug dependency — the list goes on. But alongside those myriad challenges are countless opportunities to build a better, more prosperous, sustainable community for all residents — and there is no better example of that potential than those 1,643 acres. 

To all Riverhead citizens who go to the polls on Nov. 7: In this election, vote like your town itself is on the ballot. Because 1,643 acres of it are.