Having recently obtained County Council authority to sell 737 acres of the county's Hämäkua lands, Hawai'i County Mayor Billy Kenoi's administration is delaying the liquidation effort until after the holidays.

"We're going to have kind of a marketing period to promote these," Finance Director Nancy Crawford said Monday of the 16 Pa'auilo mauka parcels the county needs to sell to help pay for government operations.

Crawford said that although the details of the marketing effort are still being worked out, she'd like to see the parcels advertised in Hawai'i and Mainland newspapers, while also listing them on the Internet to reach as many potential buyers as possible.

But the administration's feeling is that the holiday season is not a good time to undertake a real estate sales effort, so the marketing work will be put off until after Jan. 1, she said.

To balance the county's operating budget and have the sale proceeds reflected in this fiscal year's revenues, the administration needs to raise $8.21 million by the end of the budget year on June 30.

The land was worth a combined $6.33 million as of July 28, according to an appraisal by ACM Consultants Inc.

The vacant lands had belonged to the former Hamakua Sugar Co., which agreed to give 4,418 acres to the county in 1994 to settle a tax penalty the county imposed when the plantation broke its voluntary contract to continue cultivating its property.

The 16 Pa'auilo parcels range in size from 12.8 acres to 109.7 acres.

"They're going to be sold individually. That's really been my plan all along," Crawford said.

Some opponents of the land sale have expressed concern that the county would bundle the parcels in an effort to seek a single bidder, possibly lowering the purchase price by excluding small buyers.