Fed slates additional hearings on Wells' bid for First Interstate.

More community activists and politicians have signed up to testify at a hearing about Wells Fargo & Co.'s hostile bid to acquire First Interstate Bancorp than any other bank merger in recent U.S. history, a Federal Reserve Board official said last week.

The Fed has scheduled two extra days for testimony in Los Angeles and one extra day for in San Francisco to accommodate all the requests to testify, Fed spokeswoman Sandra Conlan said.

"There is no other heating (in the history of bank mergers) that will go on as many days as this one will go on," she said.

The Fed originally scheduled one day, Jan. 22, to hear testimony in simultaneous meetings in Los Angeles and San Francisco on the Wells Fargo application to acquire First Interstate.

The Fed also scheduled one day, Jan. 23, to hear testimony on Minneapolis-based First Bank System Inc.'s application to acquire First Interstate.

Hearings expanded

But because of overflowing requests to speak on the Wells Fargo plan, the Fed has scheduled two additional hearing dates in Los Angeles, Jan. 24 and Jan. 25, and one additional date in San Francisco, Jan. 24, Conlan said.

There were not as many requests to speak at the hearing on First Bank System, so no dates were added, she said.

First Interstate shareholders are expected to vote on one or both of the plans next month. But both deals require Fed approval.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a very vocal critic of Wells Fargo's plan to take over L.A.'s biggest bank, is scheduled to testify before the Fed on Jan. 22, said a spokeswoman from the mayor's office.

Riordan and City Council President John Ferraro have written a letter to the Fed Board of Governors stating that the city "strongly opposes" the Wells Fargo application.

In the letter, Riordan and Ferraro outline seven major concerns about the proposed combination:

* Consumer banking services will be irreparably harmed;

* Competition for banking customers will be diminished;

* Small business lending will decline;

* The proposed consolidation would badly impede Los Angeles' economic recovery;

* The proposed consolidation will devastate local real estate markets, already the softest in the country;

* First Interstate has made huge commitments to community development, especially the new Los Angeles Community Development Bank;

* First Interstate and its employees have a strong record of community involvement.

Wells Fargo responded to those concerns, also in a letter to the Fed, by pointing out that it has increased banking outlets to customers in 1995, that it has made eight times as many business loans as First Interstate and that Wells employees have given more money per person to charities than First Interstate employees.