The San Bernardino County Sun from San Bernardino, California • Page 6

A6 The Sun TUESDAY, December 25. 1990 Battling the cold Jack Frost joins Christinas traditions around Southland i' Daughter found after eight years Mom, missing girl reunited in L.A. By RICK ORLOV Los Angeles Daily News the 31st Annual Holiday Music Program held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The 12-hour free program, which featured nearly 40 musical and dance groups, included the county Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles and the Los Cancioneros Master Chorale. In Westwood, a multi-faith gathering of Moslems, Buddhists, Jews and Protestants held a candlelight service at dusk for world peace.

"We're not out here to bash President Bush," said Roger Merrill, organizer of the National Christmas Eve Candlelight Peace Vigil. "We simply want the Congress to do its job and look at the issues with respect to a possible Middle East war." In southwest Los Angeles, a Christmas Eve lunch was held at Washington High School for 1.500 underprivileged children from several housing projects in south central Los Angeles. Ruth Moore, 60, said she began the holiday sack lunch and magic show program in 1965 following the Watts riots. books, china sets and Barbie dolls were distributed by Santa Claus to 600 needy youths at the Maple Senior Community Center. A single mother who stood outside the center with her five children Monday said she arrived early to secure a place in line for the center's fifth annual gift giveaway for needy youngsters.

"We came here at 6:30 this morning to wait in line for Santa because we don't have toys at home for Christmas," said Susanna Navarro. "My kids woke up at 5 a.m. and everyone was so excited to get up and see Santa Claus. We thought if we come late, we won't get any toys." Later, while her children clapped hands with other youths to the Jackson 5 Christmas album, the mother said her only holiday wish was for a better life for her four sons and daughter. "This year, it's not the same for me," Navarro said.

"But I want a better life for my little ones." At the Los Angeles Music Center, 2,000 local musicians, singers and dancers performed at By KATHRYN DETTMAN Associated Press LOS ANGELES Christmas Eve offered the usual Santa sightings, gift-giving to the poor and rounds of yuletide carols. What made this year unusual in Southern California was Jack Frost nipping at your nose. Subfreezing temperatures gripping the West for nearly a week showed signs of easing, but daytime highs in the 50s offered little comfort to shoppers and the homeless coping with the coldest Christmas season in recent memory. On downtown's Skid Row, 5,000 homeless people enjoyed a traditional Christmas Eve dinner at the Los Angeles Mission. Actor Cesar Romero and author Sidney Sheldon dished up ham dinners and apple pie for the indigent.

Across the street at St. Vibia-na's Cathedral, preparations were made for Archbishop Roger Mahony's Christmas Eve Mass. In Fullerton, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle dolls, coloring 7' 4- Unemployment checks delayed Computer glitch affects payments to 13,000 Californians AP WIREPHOTO Some of the homeless attempt to keep warm around a fire in front of the Midnight Mission in Los Angeles on Monday morning as cold temperatures again gripped the Southland. our best to correct it. We've been putting in all our efforts, being aware that it's a hardship to get checks late any time of the year." The delay is the result of a computer malfunction during the evenings of Dec.

4 and 6. The system went down, losing certain data, McNally said. "This is the first time this particular problem has occurred with the system," McNally said. "We have taken safeguards to make sure that it doesn't happen again." Many department employees in Sacramento and in some of the 200 field offices statewide worked through the weekend to process claims manually. It probably won't be necessary for department employees to work on Christmas Day, McNally said.

Unemployment insurance claims are paid every other week. Most of the delayed checks will be received a week to 10 days from the scheduled date of receipt. In November, 404,569 people received regular unemployment insurance benefits totaling more than $196 million. The department's automated system, established statewide in 1988, will be replaced by a more advanced and comprehensive system by 1992. By JEANNIE WONG McClatchy News Service SACRAMENTO Workers with the state Employment Development Department have been putting in overtime to correct a computer error that delayed unemployment insurance payments to about 13,000 Californians.

Checks, ranging from $40 to $190, should be in the mail by Monday. "We're sorry that this happened during the holiday season," said Lois McNally, a department spokeswoman. "We've done LOS ANGELES Eight years of prayers were answered for Rosemary Bonillas Levi this weekend when she was reunited with the daughter who was taken from her suburban Burbank home by her former husband to Washington. "This is a miracle; God has sent back my daughter," a tearful Levi said at a news conference Monday in the Los Angeles County district attorney's office where she hugged her now 13-year-old daughter Monica. "I looked for her frantically and it paid off.

I never stopped believing that I would find her that she would come home." The reunion between Levi, who remarried after her divorce from Guillermo Bonillas and now lives in Los Angeles, and Monica came about because of a case of mistaken identity. District Attorney Investigator John Pereida said that his office had been investigating the case since Monica was taken Sept. 22, 1982, and had little evidence that Bonilla had even left California. The television program, "America's Most Wanted," broadcast a show recently about a missing child from another state. A composite picture of that missing child, also a girl, showed how she might look today.

The FBI was notified that a girl matching that description was living in Point Roberts, near the Canadian border in Washington, Pereida said. Federal authorities were suspicious of the answers given them by Bonillas and tracked down the Los Angeles case. Pereida said that Bonilla and Monica had been living in Point Roberts for six years. "He deceived the girl," Pereida said. "He told her that her mother was dead and that her name was Mary Ann Kelly." Officials wouldn't allow direct questioning of the girl, but she did say she was pleased to be with her mother.

"I love my family," Monica said. "I have a little brother I didn't know about. I have a whole family." Levi, a Spanish-English translator for the Superior Court, said that she learned only last Friday that there was a lead in her daughter's disappearance. "We were frantic because we didn't have the finances to fly up there." Levi said, estimating she had spent more than $20,000 for private investigators. "Then I called the state controller's office.

(Controller) Gray Davis told me once that if there was ever any word that they had found Monica, he (would) help anywhere in the world." Bonilla is being held in Bel-lingham, Wash. Pereida said local authorities plan to extradite him to Los Angeles to face charges of violating a court order. Matriarch elephant put to death after accident Associated Press 1941, was bumped into the moat by another elephant. Two nearby keepers didn't see the fall but heard the commotion. The elephant was walking without difficulty in the moat, but she apparently crippled herself while trying to climb out on bales of hay that zoo-keepers set up like steps, Jouett said.

Maya then was fitted with a harness and lifted by crane into a sitting position. But it was evident when workers tried to get her to stand that her legs wouldn't support her, and she was then put to death. Elephants have been knocked into the moat before without suffering serious injury, but Jouett said Maya's age may have made her accident worse. Tests after her death showed she suffered from degenerative arthritis in her legs. He described her as a generally calm, easygoing creature, but one who often would assert herself to show she still led the herd.

"There's some concern over how the remaining four elephants will react," Jouett said. "They'll notice she's gone and I'm sure it will be upsetting to them." After the accident, the zoo's Elephant Mesa was closed to the public for the rest of the day. SAN DIEGO A 51-year-old elephant at the San Diego Zoo had to be killed because of injuries she suffered after falling headfirst into a concrete moat, officials said. Maya, an Asian elephant who was the oldest mammal at the zoo, apparently suffered torn ligaments in her legs Sunday as she tried to climb out of the moat surrounding her enclosure, said zoo spokesman Jeff Jouett. Veterinarians resorted to a fatal dose of sedative when Maya was unable to stand on her own following a treatment of fluids, painkillers and steroids.

"I counted 27 people there trying to help," Jouett said. "When she would try to rock and stand up. there was a lot of calling and urging to her." Elephants cannot convalesce while sitting or lying down because their weight exerts life-threatening pressure on their lungs, Jouett said. Jouett said 51 is fairly elderly for an elephant, but they have been known to live into their 60s in captivity. Maya, who was captured in India and brought to the zoo Nov.

8, mm California school district needs $44 million loan to stay afloat Ribbons and Local Prizes awarded Up to $2,000 in Cash Awarded Nationally! Your photo assignment awaits you at bus stops, in coffee shops, on commuter trains, in the park, at book stores and libraries anywhere people are reading. Amatuer photographers of all ages are encouraged to snap those special moments (in black-and-white or color) that personify the pleasures of lifelong readership. Local winners will receive ribbons and prizes, in addition to having their winning entries appear in The Sun Newspaper. Local winning entries will be eligible to compete nationally. A Grand Prize of $2,000 will be awarded for the best photograph overall.

The Grand Prize winner will also receive a trip to Washington, D.C. and a personal lour of the Library of Congress. Cash prizes will be awarded nationally in both youth and adult divisions for black and white and color prints: First Place Second Place $500, and Third Place $250. 1 4 The district 's been trying to run a jet plane program on unleaded regular (fuel). Bill Rukeyser State Department of Education spokesman Rules and entry forms are available at these San Bernardino Public Libraries: tion, a busing program cost the district more than $500,000 a year.

In 1987, the district lost a costly arbitration to the local teachers union over salary increases, which cost the district another $4 million. On top of that, the district owed $9.7 million in outstanding bonds. That same year, the district hired maverick Superintendent Walter Marks, who embarked on a program of establishing costly magnet schools. Marks pioneered an expensive arts curriculum in each school, and spent $2 million for computers and another $1.8 million to lease IBM equipment and programs, Campbell said. Marks also started a controversial "parental choice" program, which allowed parents to send their children to any school within the district.

With the improved options and facilities and the burgeoning population of northern Contra Costa County, Marks estimated that 3,000 additional students would enroll in the district, thereby earning more revenue from the state, Campbell said. Although Marks was able to stem the district's high dropout rate, which plummeted from 29 percent to 14 percent, his growth projections were vt'ay off. By STEPHEN G. BLOOM McClatchy News Service RICHMOND Unless the state Legislature gives it a $44 million bailout loan, the Richmond Unified School District may earn the distinction of being the first government entity in California ever to go bankrupt. Without the jumbo loan from the state, the district would be unable to meet its Feb.

8 payroll for 3,249 employees, and would be forced to seek protection in federal Bankruptcy Court, according to state education officials. The proposed bailout comes just five months after the state approved another loan of $9.5 million to the troubled school district. "The district's been spending more money than it takes in," state Department of Education spokesman Bill Rukeyser said. "They've been trying to run a jet plane program on unleaded regular" fuel. The district has 31,102 students, and is the 15th largest in California.

There are 50 schools within its jurisdiction, spread out over seven San Francisco Bay area cities Richmond, EI Cerri-to, Kensington, San Pablo, El So-brante, Pinole and Hercules. Norman F. Feldheym Coddington Branch Central Library Library 555 West 6th St. 1003 E. Highland Ave.

San Bernardino, CA 92410 San Bernardino, CA (714)381-6226 882-8815 Inghram Branch Library 1505 W. Highland Ave. San Bernardino, CA 887-4494 Rowe Branch Villasenor Branch Library Library 106 E. Marshall Blvd. 525 N.

ML Vernon Ave. San Bernardino, CA San Bernardino, CA 883-3411 383-5156 If it declares bankruptcy, the district would immediately suspend payment on all existing debt, pending a restructuring of its finances. Paychecks to employees would be suspended until a financial plan is approved by an administrative judge. Richmond Unified's financial woes began in the late 1960s and snowballed, said Assemblyman Robert Campbell, D-Richmond. who introduced the bailout measure Dec.

7. Two decades ago, administrators inaugurated a host of special-education programs that cost $5 million a year, along with an ambitious $2 million-a-year building maintenance schedule. In addi Sponsored by: Norman F. Feldheym Public Library, Friends of the San Bernardino Public Library, The San Bernardino County Sun, the American Library Center for the Book in the Library Congress, and World Book, Inc..