Get Value Of Second Dropdown

Hi,

I am playing with Yii for a few days and so far I am very impressed. I am having fun
At this moment I am playing with dependent dropdown lists, it all works great until the point that I want to get the value of the second drop down.

in my view: (I am working with a textfield instead of a dropdown, the entry will be searched in the database and works flawlessly)

echo CHtml::textField("input_town",'',array('id'=>'input_town','ajax' => array(
                        'type' =>'POST',
                        'url' => CController::createUrl('town'),
                        'update' => '#townlist',
                        'data' => 'html',
                        'submit' => '',
        'data'=>"js:{input_town: $('#input_town').val()}",
                ))); ?>

In my controller I have :

    public function actionTown() {
        $a = $_POST["input_town"];
        ...
        ...
        looks in database etc.
        ...
        echo CHtml::dropDownList('test','', 
            array(2=>'test',1=>'Middle Atlantic',3=>'East North Central'));
            array(
            'ajax' => array(
            'type'=>'POST',
            'url'=>CController::createUrl('kill'),
            'update'=>'#showing_id',
       ));
    }

The dropdown is put exactly where I want it to bel And as you see I am trying to put a bit of AJAX in it hoping that it will do the same as the code in my VIEW. However it is not working.
When I check in firebug I see the controller working perfectly when I type text and hit enter. However nothing when I make a selection in my dropdownlist. I also played with 'onChange' but also not the desired results.

How do I get the value of the second dropdown?

Thanks in advance,

W.