IN CHICO, THIS WEEK'S MAYOR IS . . . : SPLIT WITHIN COUNCIL PROMTS HAT DRAWING.

Byline: Associated Press 

The Chico City Council can't agree on who should be mayor, so members decided they each will be - a week at a time.

The death of longtime Councilman Ted Hubert to cancer last week, three weeks after his re-election, left the six remaining members evenly divided between conservatives and liberals.

On Tuesday, the council deadlocked over picking a mayor and appointing someone to replace Hubert. The impasse leaves the council with no one to break a tie and the prospect of a special election, at a cost of $60,000, to fill the seventh seat.

Council members drew names from a hat after City Manager Tom Lando suggested council members rotate the mayor's title. Councilman Rick Keene was picked as the first mayor-for-a-week, to be followed by Councilman David Guzzetti.

City Attorney Bob Boehm called it ``a good news and bad news situation. We don't have a permanent mayor. But everyone can say'' they held the office.

Chico voters on Nov. 5 gave conservatives a bare majority on the council. But Hubert's Nov. 28 death changed that. He was 63.

On Tuesday, the council's liberals blocked a bid to appoint Bill Johnston to Hubert's seat. Johnston, a conservative, placed fifth in a race for four seats Nov. 5, falling 44 votes short. He was nearly 500 votes ahead of the sixth-place finisher, former Mayor Michael McGinnis.

``They just fired the first salvo of what I hope is a short battle,'' Johnston said. ``I'd love to start the new council peacefully. If ever there was a need for common sense, it's now.''

Conservatives responded by defeating a motion to make Guzzetti a full-term mayor. They also rejected a proposal to make Guzzetti and Councilwoman Mary Andrews ``co-mayors'' who would alternate leading the meetings.