Why don't you use a JSTL custom tag to render your drop down lists.
Create a cache of application level values and make them available from a Boot Strap
servlet. Make your cache a follow the standard key-value
pattern where you pass in a key to the cache to receive a value out of it.
Next, build a JSTL tag that has access to the cache provided by the BootStrap servlet.
Have the definition of the JSTL tag take an input for a key that you could hard code into your jsp pages, when that is relevant.
For example, your tag could look like...
<custom:value key="123abc" />
When you need the drop down to render dynamically, add another argument to your jstl tag to look for a viewbean, and method on the view bean to get the tag key.
<custom:value name="" property=""/>
Where 'name' is the key to access some object in pageContext, and 'property' is the method to use on 'name'. Using reflection you could call 'property' on 'name'.
Example
<custom:value name="formBean" property="foo.bar" />
It is assumed that there is a getFoo() method on the object returned by pageContext.getAttribute(formBean), and a getBar() on the result of getFoo().