ST. PETERS   •   State Rep. Ron Hicks announced Thursday that he'll challenge longtime St. Peters Mayor Len Pagano in the April municipal election.
Hicks also said he wouldn't run for another term in the House next November if he loses the mayor's race.Â
He said it wouldn't be fair to voters to essentially be a candidate for two offices at the same time.
"I want them to know I'm 100 percent in this," Hicks said of the mayor's race. "It's not about what seat to win."
Hicks said he wasn't getting out of the House race because of ongoing pressure from supporters of the so-called "right-to-work" measure.
The Post-Dispatch reported last July that . Â Recently, he said, he began to reconsider.
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Hicks was among 20 House Republicans who joined with Democrats to defeat an attempted override of Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon's veto of the "right-to-work" bill.
The measure, which was supported by most Republicans in the Legislature, would bar private-sector employment contracts that require workers to join or pay dues to a union.
Pagano also opposes right-to-work.
Hicks and the 19 others are the targets of a statewide ad blitz launched Wednesday by a committee supporting right-to-work, funded by more than $1 million in donations from the owners of a Joplin building products company.
Hicks said he will vote against "right-to-work" if it comes up again while he's still in the Legislature.
As for the mayor's race, Hicks said he believed Pagano had done a good job in his nine-year tenure but that the city needed an infusion of "fresh ideas" he could bring. Â He said he would elaborate on that as the campaign unfolded.
He did criticize Pagano and city aldermen for mounting a court challenge of a St. Charles County charter amendment barring red-light cameras countywide that was passed by voters last year.
"The people voted that down," Hicks said of the cameras. "The city was wrong to challenge that."
A circuit judge has upheld the amendment, which was put on the ballot by the County Council. Â St. Peters and other plaintiffs have yet to decide whether to appeal the ruling.
Pagano and other city officials announced they wouldn't reinstate the cameras but were fighting the amendment on principle and the county was violating the rights of cities with the ban.
Pagano, who filed for re-election on Tuesday, shrugged off Hicks' claim that the city needed new ideas.
"I'm not too sure why he's saying that," Pagano said. He said he's overseen a progressive city with regards to technology, road improvements and business expansion.
As an example, he pointed out that Reckitt Benckiser, a British cleaning products company, plans to expand its manufacturing presence in the city with a new 1 million-square-foot facility to be built in the Premier 370 business park.
That would be in addition to its existing factory in another part of the city.
Hicks, 43, has been in the House since 2013. Â His family owns fast-food restaurants across the area.
Pagano, 71, was first elected mayor in 2007 to fill the final year in the term of Shawn Brown after Brown's bribery conviction. Â In that race, he defeated five other candidates. Â In 2008 and 2012, he was unopposed for re-election.
He already had been a familiar name in local politics from his 24 years as a city alderman and unsuccessful races for mayor and county assessor. Â He is a retired warehouse coordinator.