CLAYTON — St. Louis County Assessor Jake Zimmerman said Tuesday he is running for county executive in 2020, pointing to an “urgent need for reform in county government.”

Zimmerman, 45, a lawyer who has served as assessor since 2011, said he appreciated the job fellow Democrat Sam Page has done since the County Council selected him to succeed Steve Stenger, exactly six months ago, in the wake of a federal pay-to-play indictment. But he said voters deserved a choice.

“The County Council made their choice, and I think under the circumstances, they may have made a good one, but now it’s time for the people to have their say, and that’s what elections are for,” Zimmerman said in an interview on Tuesday. He questioned about whether from Page “we’ve seen real vision or whether we’ve seen squabbling with other regional leaders and squabbling over our small slices of the pie. I think we can do better than that.”