Arrest Warrant

I live in California, and at about the end of 2001, I received a notice in the mail of the suspension of my driving priveliges until I clear up a ticket I received almost 6 months prior. The letter included a listing of the tickets on my record and only the one was listed. I returned to the court to pay the fine and learn that there is an outstanding warrant out for my arrest that dates back to February of 1996, where the original violation occured in January. This was for a red light violation on a bicycle, for which I received an extension of the fine. Since then, I have moved twice and, until last week, had completely forgotten about this. My questions are: a) how long can this arrest warrant be considered active? b) shouldn't this warrant have been listed on the letter I received from the DMV? and c) since the violation I appeared on occured in the same city as the one in 1996, shouldn't the officer have at least informed me of the earlier charge??

Lets just forget all the drama...go down to the DMV, pay the fee, find out if or how many FTA's (failure to appear) you have, then go down to the court and get on a payment plan. End of Problem.