As reported in the Park Labrea News/Beverly Press last week, retiring Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Third District, has not made an endorsement regarding his potential successor, but he said he felt compelled this week to make a statement.

On Saturday, District 3 candidate Bobby Shriver ran an ad in the Los Angeles Times that showed a portrait of Yaroslavsky and read, “Who shares his values?” and on the opposite side there is an image of Shriver and his family with the words, “Bobby Shriver does!” The ad also read “Zev Yaroslavsky says Bobby is ‘dynamic, energetic’ and ‘will build on what I have done.’”

Shriver, a former Santa Monica mayor, is competing with former state senator Sheila Kuehl for the District 3 seat. Shortly after the ad ran, Yaroslavsky issues the following statement:

“I have absolutely not endorsed either candidate in this supervisor’s election. [Saturday’s] Times insert is obviously the Shriver campaign’s effort to create that impression, but I remain completely neutral in this election. Both the Shriver and the Kuehl campaigns know that I am neutral, and I ask that the campaign refrain from further disseminating any literature of this kind.”

Shriver’s campaign officials said it was not the intent of the ad to infer that Yaroslavsky was endorsing Shriver, but instead they wanted to depict that Shriver was similarly a fiscal conservative and budget-conscious, and that he shared the same values as the retiring supervisor. It was a one-time ad, they said.