A: 

Not directly a solution for your problem but why are you using a framework such as CI, which works around the MVC-principle and in the meantime have PHP and SQL statements in your view?

I suggest you read up on these CI topics:

Template parser: http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/libraries/parser.html
Database (active record): http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/database/active_record.html
Views: http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/general/views.html

What's the CSS you're currently using?

Tom
pro_dropdown_2.css
udaya