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THEBACHA/FORT SMITH - The Salt River First Nation will be going to the polls to elect a chief and three band councillors before July 15, after chief Frieda Martselos, and the band council, agreed to drop an appeal of an arbitrator's ruling calling for a new election.

Arbitrator Kate Hurlburt ruled on March 30 an election be called, within 60 days, for four positions after she found Martselos had violated the band's custom electoral regulations in August 2008.

Martselos had appealed the ruling on April 3, but told News/North Saturday she was dropping it after council decided money spent on legal fees would be better used for housing repairs and other needs of the band's membership.

She said no date has been set for the election, but expected it to be known by the first week of May.

"This will clear the air once and for all because I think that Salt River has so much potential and the in-fighting has got to stop," she said.

"The membership endorsed us to go into appeals and stuff but after much thought, council has decided this is a better way to go," she said.

Martselos, however, stood firm in her disagreement with the ruling and said this direction from council was not an endorsement of Hurlburt's decision, which Martselos sees as an incorrect interpretation of the band's customary election regulations.

Martselos will once again be running for the position of chief and she said the three councillors who were named in the defamation - Frederick Beaulieu, Bradley Laviolette and Gloria Villebrun - will run for council.

While one important election looms on the horizon, the votes were tallied in a byelection last Monday. Ronnie Schaefer and Kendra Bourke beating out Toni Heron for two councillor positions, made vacant when Mike Beaver and Chris Bird were voted out of council back in February.

Schaefer and Bourke were sworn in officially on Wednesday night.