It was a new millennium, but the City Council was up to its old tricks on Monday, failing to elect a mayor at the 2000-2001 council's inauguration.

Just after the new council was sworn in amid music and ceremony, the councillors made their first attempt at electing a mayor, but no candidate received the necessary five votes needed for victory.

The leader after the first round of voting is Kathleen L. Born with four votes (hers and those of Henrietta Davis, Jim Braude and Marjorie C. Decker).

Michael A. Sullivan is second with three votes (his and those of Kenneth E. Reeves '72 and David P. Maher), while Anthony D. Galluccio has his own vote and Timothy J. Toomey Jr's.

The council will vote again at its Monday night meeting, and will continue re-voting until at least five members support one mayor. Until that point, senior council member Reeves will serve as acting mayor of the city.

The mayor holds relatively little power under the city's "Plan E" form of government. Beyond his or her ceremonial functions, he or she simply chairs both the City Council and the School Committee.

Still, the position is one sought after by local politicians, both as a jumping-off point for more ambitious political careers and as a status marker.

Monday's vote fell along party lines. The progressive Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) slate of Born, Braude and Davis and unaffiliated progressive Decker supported Born, while the more conservative but still left-of-center Independent vote--Galluccio, Maher, Sullivan and Toomey--was split between Galluccio and Sullivan.