{"id":314652,"date":"2026-05-14T01:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T01:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/314652\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T01:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T01:54:10","slug":"after-the-fight-the-first-families-move-into-silver-rv-park-in-harbor-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/314652\/","title":{"rendered":"After the Fight, the First Families Move Into Silver RV Park in Harbor City –"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Graphic<\/a>Graphic of Rick Thomas in front of Silver RV park. By Terelle Jerricks <\/p>\n

By Rick Thomas, Columnist<\/p>\n

Harbor City\u2019s controversial RV park<\/a> opens, dividing neighbors while offering stability to those who need it most<\/p>\n

Well\u2026we\u2019ve officially reached the end.<\/p>\n

I think.<\/p>\n

After years of fighting, court dates, neighborhood meetings, and a whole lot of frustration, Silver RV Park in Harbor City is open.<\/p>\n

Like, actually open.<\/p>\n

The Certificate of Occupancy was issued on April 22. RVs are already parked on-site, and more are on the way.<\/p>\n

Stewart Silver won.<\/p>\n

Not quietly, not cleanly\u2026but clearly.<\/p>\n

Drive past the place, and you\u2019ll see it for yourself: a handful of RVs already set up, people starting to move in, and the reality that this project everyone argued about for three years is no longer hypothetical.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a long, hard fight,\u201d Silver said, which might be the understatement of the entire drama.<\/p>\n

Standing there as people started moving in, he added, \u201cThey\u2019re actually starting to move in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes.<\/p>\n

That tends to happen when something opens.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, over in Green Meadows West, this is being treated less like a ribbon-cutting and more like the beginning of the apocalypse. On the Save Green Meadows West website, residents have made it very clear how they feel:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a temporary Luxury RV park\u2026it\u2019s really for permanent low-income.\u201d<\/p>\n

Translation: this is exactly what they didn\u2019t want.<\/p>\n

Walk around the neighborhood, and you can feel it. One resident, out walking his dog, pointed across the street like he was presenting evidence in a trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver here you have this,\u201d he said, gesturing toward the RV park, \u201cand over there?\u201d<\/p>\n

Over there, of course, there are million-dollar homes.<\/p>\n

Because nothing fuels outrage quite like proximity.<\/p>\n

The resistance isn\u2019t completely dead, either.<\/p>\n

According to him, neighbors are still trying to raise $40,000 to hire an attorney to shut the park down. At this point, it\u2019s hard to tell if that\u2019s a strategy or just sheer determination to not let go.<\/p>\n

Because here\u2019s the thing: the park is open. That part isn\u2019t up for debate anymore.<\/p>\n

And then you get a completely different perspective.<\/p>\n

A single mom touring the site with her two kids had a very different reaction. Big smile, noticeably relieved, clearly seeing something others aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a nice neighborhood,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Same place.<\/p>\n

A totally different reality.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s been going through a rough time\u2014marriage fell apart, trying to figure things out\u2014and this park, controversial as it is, might actually give her and her two kids some stability.<\/p>\n

While one side sees a threat, she sees a chance.<\/p>\n

And that contrast?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the whole story.<\/p>\n

For Stewart Silver, though, the fight isn\u2019t entirely over\u2014it\u2019s just changing form. Because now comes the part where he goes after the City of Los Angeles for $20 million.<\/p>\n

Yes, twenty million.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy legal fees are over $600,000 and I am suing for $20,000,000,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going after millions of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also made it clear he\u2019s not just frustrated\u2014he\u2019s furious.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeven actual cases,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have a defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

He won\u2026every\u2026single\u2026one.<\/p>\n

So now the city gets to deal with the aftermath.<\/p>\n

And by \u201cthe city,\u201d we mean taxpayers\u2014because if this lawsuit goes badly, guess who\u2019s paying?<\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

We are.<\/p>\n

The City Attorney is already preparing for the fight, asking for outside legal help.<\/p>\n

The first bill?<\/p>\n

$160,000.<\/p>\n

Just to get started.<\/p>\n

Because apparently, the only thing more expensive than stopping a project is failing to stop it and then getting sued for trying.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit\u2014Oceans 11 RV Park LLC et al v. City of Los Angeles\u2014is now sitting in federal court.<\/p>\n

Silver went big.<\/p>\n

And he seems very confident.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have a defense,\u201d he said again, just in case anyone missed it the first time.<\/p>\n

A lot of this chaos ties back to the city\u2019s Public Benefits program. In simple terms, projects like this can move forward without notifying neighbors. No heads-up, no community input, just\u2026surprise.<\/p>\n

As you can imagine, that went over really well.<\/p>\n

City Councilmember Tim McOsker fought the project, but it didn\u2019t matter. The rules are the rules, and in this case, they didn\u2019t work in the neighborhood\u2019s favor. Now, with an active lawsuit hanging over everything, his office isn\u2019t saying much beyond the usual: they\u2019re \u201cawaiting additional information\u201d and will keep pursuing \u201cevery available legal option.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is political speak for: this isn\u2019t over, even though it kind of is.<\/p>\n

Others are more direct.<\/p>\n

15th City Council candidate Jordan Rivers didn\u2019t hold back, especially about the repeated legal battles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t sue someone six times with taxpayer dollars that could be used to build more homes and address social services,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hard to argue with that math.<\/p>\n

He also supports the project itself:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis allows residents who do not have a place to stay to actually have accessibility to housing\u2026I\u2019m in favor of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, even though he agrees the process is flawed, there should probably be some level of neighborhood input before something like this gets dropped into the middle of a community.<\/p>\n

Right now, the system doesn\u2019t require it. And this situation is what happens when you skip that step.<\/p>\n

So yeah\u2014this has been a mess.<\/p>\n

For everyone.<\/p>\n

Stewart Silver, who spent years fighting to build this and is now spending even more time suing the city.<\/p>\n

Tim McOsker, who fought it and lost repeatedly, is now stuck dealing with the legal fallout.<\/p>\n

The residents, who feel ignored and are still trying to figure out what, if anything, they can do next.<\/p>\n

And the City of Los Angeles, which might end up writing a very large check when all of this is done.<\/p>\n

At this point, the idea of everyone sitting down together and working it out over a drink\u2014maybe a Lagavulin on the rocks isn\u2019t just unlikely.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s basically impossible.<\/p>\n

But despite all of that\u2026<\/p>\n

The park is open.<\/p>\n

People are moving in.<\/p>\n

Life continues, whether anyone likes it or not.<\/p>\n

And in the middle of all the noise, the lawsuits, the politics, and the bitterness, there\u2019s still that one simple, inconvenient fact:<\/p>\n

A mom and her two kids found a place to live.<\/p>\n

Say what you want about everything else\u2014that part\u2019s real.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Graphic of Rick Thomas in front of Silver RV park. By Terelle Jerricks By Rick Thomas, Columnist Harbor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[66191,131764,131,133,132,9722],"class_list":["post-314652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-harborcity","tag-silverrvpark","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-rln"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}