Shelene Hearring is sprinting against big developers to try to buy a slice of Altadena on Lake Avenue, a part of the unincorporated town she sees as crucial to the community’s identity.

Hearring, who ran Two Dragon Martial Arts Studio for 18 years on Lake Avenue, placed a bid to buy the land after her studio burned down in the Eaton fire in January. The bid was accepted by the landowner this week, and Hearring notified the community that she has until Nov. 25 to raise $600,000 to secure the property.

“We want to maintain the sense of community that we used to have,” Hearring said. “Last week big businesses were looking to buy it up. I said no, we gotta have something for our community. We want to get back to where we used to be.”

Hearring’s case is one of the few instances, and possibly the only one, of an Altadena small business owner attempting to buy property they once rented by launching a GoFundMe campaign. When she learned the property was being sold, she realized developers were putting in offers. Now she’s hoping the community will support her efforts to stay in Altadena, as many residents fear the culture and fabric will change as more families move out and developers swoop in.

Across Altadena, the Eaton fire destroyed about 9,000 structures. Among them was the Two Dragon Martial Arts Studio, which one of Hearring’s family members photographed going up in flames. Today the lot has been cleared of debris and sits empty. It’s one of many Black-owned businesses lost in the fire.

The property at 2490 N. Lake Ave. had housed Hearring’s martial arts studio, a nail salon and other businesses. Before that the building had been the Altadena sheriff’s station, making it a community landmark, she said.

Hearring, who grew up in Altadena, also lost the home she was renting, forcing her to bounce from hotel to hotel until she found stable housing in Arcadia. As soon as she could, she started teaching classes outside at a park to maintain a sense of normalcy, until she secured a space to teach in Altadena. That effort, helped by a fundraising campaign, allowed her to keep paying staff and pay down loans she took out to keep the business afloat during the pandemic.

Altadena has been flooded by investors buying up properties. Melissa Michelson, co-founder and lead organizer of the Altadena Not for Sale movement, is tracking what’s listed, bought and sold. So far, of the 289 properties that have been sold, 168 were bought by limited liability investors and private equity firms, as opposed to 93 purchased by individuals, she said.

“The vultures are out there swarming,” Michelson said, referring to developers and investors looking to turn a profit following the devastation. “They’re not going away.”

Among the more prominent buyers has been Altadena local Edwin Castro, who won a $2-billion Powerball lottery jackpot in 2022 and has been purchasing empty lots under Black Lion Properties LLC, spending $10 million on 15 lots, according to the Wall Street Journal. Castro told the Journal he wants to lead the rebuilding effort in Altadena and intends to sell to families.

Michelson’s group began selling and donating “Altadena Not for Sale” yard signs that now dot empty lots, standing homes and storefronts around town. The group also launched a petition to urge the state Legislature to create greater protections against corporations coming in and buying up properties in the disaster zone. So far the petition has gathered about 1,500 signatures. Another group, the Altadena Dining Club, formed to try to keep local eateries afloat amid a drop in foot traffic around town.

With Hearring’s studio, Michelson said it is exciting to see the community support a small business owner going up against real estate speculators. The homeowners who make up Altadena Not for Sale also are adamant about remaining in the area.

“This is really unprecedented that a community is coming together like this,” she said.

As of Friday, Hearring had raised about $73,000 online, a far cry from what she needs to purchase the lot. But she said she’s hopeful. She envisions a space not just for her studio, but one where nonprofit groups and young people can come together.

“If we don’t hold the fort down, there will be nothing to come back to,” Hearring said.

WASHINGTON  — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups urged the Supreme Court on Friday to block new California laws that will require thousands of companies to disclose their emissions and their impacts on climate change.

One of the laws is due to take effect on Jan. 1, and the emergency appeal asks the court to put it on hold temporarily.

Their lawyers argue the measures violate the 1st Amendment because the state would be forcing companies to speak on its preferred topic.

“In less than eight weeks, California will compel thousands of companies across the nation to speak on the deeply controversial topic of climate change,” they said in an appeal that also spoke for the California Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles County Business Federation.

They say the two new laws would require companies to disclose the “climate-related risks” they foresee and how their operations and emissions contribute to climate change.

“Both laws are part of California’s open campaign to force companies into the public debate on climate issues and pressure them to alter their behavior,” they said. Their aim, according to their sponsors, is to “make sure that the public actually knows who’s green and who isn’t.”

One law, Senate Bill 261, will require several thousand companies that do business in California to assess their “climate-related financial risk” and how they may reduce that risk. A second measure, SB 253, which applies to larger companies, requires them to assess and disclose their emissions and how their operations could affect the climate.

The appeal argues these laws amount to unconstitutional compelled speech.

“No state may violate 1st Amendment rights to set climate policy for the Nation. Compelled-speech laws are presumptively unconstitutional — especially where, as here, they dictate a value-laden script on a controversial subject such as climate change,” they argue.

Officials with the California Air Resources Board, whose chair Lauren Sanchez was named as defendant, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

The first-in-the-nation carbon disclosure laws were widely celebrated by environmental advocates at the time of their passage, with the nonprofit California Environmental Voters describing them as a “game-changer not just for our state but for the entire world.”

Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who authored SB 253, said at the time that the laws were “a simple but powerful tool in the fight to tackle climate change.”

“When corporations are transparent about the full scope of their emissions, they have the tools and incentives to tackle them,” Wiener said.

Michael Gerrard, a climate-change legal expert at Columbia University, described Friday’s motion as “the latest example of businesses and conservatives weaponizing the 1st Amendment.” He pointed to the Citizens United case, which said businesses have a free speech right to unlimited campaign contributions, as another example.

“Exxon tried and failed to use this argument in 2022 when it attempted to block an investigation by the Massachusetts Attorney General into whether it misled consumers and investors about the risks of climate change,” he said in an email. “Exxon claimed this investigation violated its First Amendment rights; the Massachusetts courts rejected this attempt.”

Under the Biden administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted similar climate-change disclosure rules. Companies would have been required to disclose the impact of climate change on their business and what they intended to do to mitigate the risk.

But the Chamber of Commerce sued and won a lower court ruling that blocked those rules.

And in March, Trump appointees said the SEC would retreat and not defend the “costly and unnecessarily intrusive climate-change disclosure rules.”

The emergency appeal challenging California’s disclosure laws was filed by Washington attorney Eugene Scalia, a son of the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

The companies have tried and failed to persuade judges in California to block the measures. Exxon Mobil filed a suit in Sacramento, while the Chamber of Commerce sued in Los Angeles.

In August, U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II in Los Angeles refused to block the laws on the grounds they “regulate commercial speech,” which gets less protection under the 1st Amendment. He said businesses are routinely required to disclose financial data and factual information on their operations.

The business lawyers said they had appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals asking for an injunction, but no action has been taken.

Shortly after the chamber’s appeal was filed, state attorneys for Iowa and 24 other Republican-leaning states joined in support. They said they “strongly oppose this radical green speech mandate that California seeks to impose on companies.”

The justices are likely to ask for a response next week from California’s state attorneys before acting on the appeal.

Savage reported from Washington, D.C., Smith from Los Angeles.

Warner Bros. Discovery has modified Chief Executive David Zaslav’s contract for a second time this year to prepare for the company’s proposed breakup.

This month’s alterations were outlined in an SEC filing on Thursday — a week before initial bids are due in the Warner Bros. Discovery auction. Industry sources expect Paramount, Comcast and Netflix to make offers for the embattled entertainment company that owns HBO, CNN, Food Network and the storied Warner Bros. movie and television studios.

Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment.

The sale kicked off in September when David Ellison-led Paramount made an unsolicited offer for Warner Bros. Discovery — a month after Ellison and RedBird Capital Partners had acquired Paramount from the Redstone family in an $8-billion deal. The company since has made at least three bids — but all were unanimously rejected by the Warner Bros. Discovery board, which viewed them as too low.

Paramount’s most recent solicitation for Warner Bros. Discovery was for $23.50 per share, which would value the company at about $58 billion.

The external jockeying for Warner Bros. Discovery set the stage for Zaslav and the Warner board to amend his employment agreement. The contract was revised Nov. 7 to clarify that various spin-off configurations would result in the same incentives for Zaslav.

Previously, his contract was amended to outline his compensation and incentives should the Warner Bros. studios and HBO Max spin off from the parent company, as envisioned when Warner announced its breakup plans in June. At the time, Zaslav planned to stay on to run the studios and streaming company, which would be called Warner Bros. in a nod to its historic roots and the pioneering days of the movie industry.

The plan was for the company’s two dozen cable networks, including CNN, TNT, Animal Planet and TLC, to remain behind and the company renamed Discovery Global.

The company is forging ahead with its breakup plans. However, it now plans to spin off the cable channels (Discovery Global) and keep the studios, HBO and the HBO Max streaming service as the surviving corporate entity (Warner Bros.).

“The amendment clarifies that if the separation is achieved by retaining Warner Bros. and spinning off Discovery Global (a ‘Reverse Spinoff’) rather than spinning off Warner Bros. … the Reverse Spinoff will be treated in the same manner … for all purposes of the Zaslav arrangements,” the filing said.

Previously, the company had envisioned that the split would be complete by Dec. 31, 2026. But a full-blown auction could upset those plans — and the transaction could close at a later date.

Zaslav’s contract was modified to extend his employment through December 2030. Previously, his contract was set to expire in December 2027.

“This extension is intended to secure Mr. Zaslav’s leadership of WBD for the same period that we had contracted to have him serve as the chief executive officer of Warner Bros. following a separation,” the filing said.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that nonbinding preliminary bids for the company are due Nov. 20.