Sr. Reporter: Varona wins Nogales school board seat

Varona, you may recall, is the man I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, who was accused of a pattern of sexual abuse when he was Nogales High School principal. The school district settled out of court in a settlement that remains confidential — for now. Varona denies the plaintiff's allegations and any other accusation of wrongdoing.

Varona and current school-board president Hector Arana were running unopposed in the election, so their wins were predetermined. In fact, Varona, a politically powerful person in Nogales, criticized the school board's decision to hold the election at all. But the voting was still interesting.

Santa Cruz County reports there have been 4,446 votes counted in the school board race. Each voter could vote for two candidates, so conceivably, each candidate could have received 100 percent of the votes. Nevertheless, Arana has received 2,470 votes, or 56 percent of the total, and Varona has received 1,838 votes, or 41 percent.

Arana and fellow board member Dr. L. Hunter Nash spoke out against Varona in the run-up to the re-election, saying the suit against him and settlement make him an unsuitable member. I haven't heard back from Varona yet, but this is what he told the Nogales International:

"It isn’t going to be a very comfortable situation," he said. "I don’t know if we can set aside the hostilities and the hatred, because that’s what there is ... It’s a situation where nobody’s going to get along but we’re going to have to put aside our personal animosities toward each other and just take care of the business of education and that’s it."

As an aside, Varona said in my story about him that he wants the settlement of the 2000 lawsuit to be released. He also said he would be willing to sign off on the release. But since the story ran, he has not returned my calls. The other parties in the case have told me they're willing to release the settlement, and I'm hearing a resolution could be coming soon.