STUART — Former Martin County Commissioner Lee Weberman said he’s having a hard time deciding which incumbent to challenge in the 2010 Republican primary for the commission because he thinks both are beatable.

Weberman could renew his long-running political debate about growth issues with Commissioner Sarah Heard by running in District 4, or he could try to exploit what he perceives as the image problems of Commissioner Susan Valliere by running in District 2.

Either way, Weberman said he plans to campaign as a middle class man of the people against a millionaire “elitist.”

“I think that generally people aren’t happy with having four millionaires as county commissioners,” said Weberman, who reported a net worth of $108,307 in 2008, his last year in office. “It just looks like an elitist society of hobbyists. I think that’s not really representative of our community.”

Although they disagree with each other on many issues, Heard and Valliere both rejected Weberman’s criticism, said their net worth had nothing to do with their performance in office, and questioned what Weberman’s platform would be on the issues facing Martin County.

“I think he’s gaming the system and trying to figure out who is a better person to run against,” Heard said. “So obviously, he has no platform whatsoever. He doesn’t care about my principals or voting record and he doesn’t care about Commissioner Valliere’s either.”

Valliere laughed when told about Weberman’s statements.

“I think his assumption that it’s an elitist group is absurd,” Valliere said.

Weberman also said he believes Heard listed the assessed value of her house on her financial disclosure forms — instead of the market value, which is nearly $800,000 higher — because she doesn’t want the public to know she’s a millionaire.

“She painfully tries to paint an image of not being a very wealthy millionaire,” Weberman said.

But Heard said state ethics officials told her to use the assessed value of her house when she first ran in 2002.

A spokeswoman for the Florida Ethics Commission, Kerrie Stillman, said the Ethics Commission has never rendered an official opinion on the question because a candidate has never formally requested one.

In addition, Weberman said he believes Valliere has “image problems” because of questions about her residency, her husband Jim’s political activities, a $2,000 civil fine for two campaign finance violations and whether she flip-flopped on growth issues.

But Valliere described herself as a “centrist” who made two small clerical errors on her campaign finance reports.

Valliere added, “If Lee Weberman wants to fight this campaign in the mud, he’s going to have to play by himself.”

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