CALAIS – It took five months of consideration and hours of deliberations, but in the end the city’s hometown savings and loan decided it would be in the best interest of Calais Federal Savings and Loan to merge with an association in Gardiner.

“The board has carefully reviewed Gardiner Savings [Institution’s] products and services and we are confident enough to offer to provide individualized comparisons over the last two years for you or any customer or potential customer as to how much better off they would have been financially had they been with our new partner,” Dan Hollingdale, chairman of the Calais savings and loan, said in a letter to association members Vinton Cassidy and Geoffrey Maker.

Cassidy, Maker and others have said they oppose the merger. A meeting to stop the merger was held last month; another meeting is scheduled for 6:30 tonight at the American Legion. They have invited members of the savings and loan’s board of directors to the meeting.

The announcement of the merger was made Oct. 13. The merger plan was approved by the boards of directors of both institution and is subject to regulatory approval. The actual change is anticipated in the first quarter of 2007.

But opponents hope to block the merger. They plan to submit a petition to the Office of Thrift Supervision, the federal agency with oversight of the savings and loan industry, and they are requesting a special meeting of association members in accordance with the association’s bylaws. They also plan to elect to the board of directors depositors who are opposed to the merger at its annual meeting in January. Two seats are up for grabs.

Hollingdale, in his letter to the opponents, said that consolidation was a necessary step. “In 1989, there were over 12,000 FDIC insured banks in this country. That figure has dropped to 7,000, a 37 percent decrease,” the letter said. “The reduction is even more pronounced in the thrift and independent bank numbers which are down from 6,300 to 2,400, a 61 percent decrease.”

Although Calais Federal is not in “financial distress” the letter went on to say “the question really is whether the bank is sufficiently capitalized to finance regulatory and technological requirements in a timely manner.”

Hollingdale rejected the opponent’s assertion that the savings and loans board of directors stood to gain from the merger. “There is no special deals for Calais Federal directors who will simply be rolled into the advisory board program that has been established by Gardiner Savings to provide local input from each location and that this merger requires regulatory approval which examines reasons for the merger and protects against decisions for personal gain which most certainly was not a consideration,” the letter went on to say.

In a press release issued Tuesday, Hollingdale noted that the savings and loan has no intention of laying off employees if the merger goes through. He also noted that the association was feeling the pressures of regulatory demands and as a result has employees and officers who are doing two or three different jobs. “Calais Federal is the second smallest bank in Maine,” the press release said. “Our technology cost would be huge without the merger.”

Hollingdale also noted that right now Calais Federal is the only bank in the area that is totally dependent upon Washington County. “What happens if the mill operations in Baileyville closes down, as we see happening throughout Maine?” Hollingdale asked. “Who would be the most vulnerable? The larger local banks and credit union with locations through the state or Calais Federal with our small operation totally depending on our local economy?”

The savings and loan office, Hollingdale said, would remain downtown. “We feel that Main Street needs our presence,” he said.