New London — Saying the decision is “too important to be rushed,” six of the seven city councilors and Mayor Michael Passero on Wednesday urged state regulators to resist pressure to act quickly on the application for an affiliation between the Yale-New Haven Health System and Lawrence + Memorial Healthcare.

In a news conference on City Hall steps, Councilor Martha Marx, president of the union that represents L+M visiting nurses, led speakers calling for detailed disclosure of information about how health care costs and services would be affected locally if L+M became part of the larger Yale-New Haven network, and how the $300 million Yale-New Haven has pledged to invest in L+M would be spent.

Along with councilors, also attending were representatives of other L+M unions and health care advocacy groups.

“I want to know what it’s going to do to health care costs,” Marx said, explaining she is concerned that the affiliation would create a “huge monopoly” of a single health care system along the shoreline from Greenwich to Westerly.

“We want a guarantee that we are not going to lose any of our access here” to services including L+M’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and sleep lab, she said.

In response to comments at the news conference, hospital officials said state regulators are following a deliberate process and that they have provided all information requested by the agency.

Marx and five other councilors sent a letter Aug. 18 to the state Office of Health Care Access, which is considering the application, urging regulators to “insist on seeing all the data” and ensure that all the community’s “unanswered concerns” are addressed before making a decision.

Council President Erica Richardson, who works at Yale-New Haven, was the only councilor who did not sign the letter and she did not attend the news conference.

The letter was prompted by comments earlier this month from Marna Borgstrom, president and chief executive of Yale-New Haven, that if a decision isn’t made by Sept. 8, the hospitals face paying $250,000 to re-file with the Federal Trade Commission for regulatory approval from that agency, which oversees compliance with anti-trust regulations.

The fee was paid a year ago, but FTC approval is now set to expire.

The two hospital systems filed applications for the affiliation and for the merger of the L+M Medical Group, its physician organization, with Yale-New Haven’s Northeast Medical Group, in October.

In February, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy declared a moratorium on new hospital affiliations, acquisitions and mergers until a task force completes a review and overhaul of the regulatory process. That is expected to be complete no sooner than January.

Given the moratorium, it is unclear whether OHCA could make a decision before Sept. 8, regardless of pressure from the hospitals to do so.

Nevertheless, said Marx and Ann Pratt, director of organizing for the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, those concerned about the affiliation believed they needed to counter Borgstrom’s statements about the Sept. 8 deadline. Her statements came a week after the second and final of two OHCA public hearings on the applications.

“Yale’s putting pressure on them, so we have to put pressure on them not to” make a decision too soon, Marx said.

Both in the letter and remarks by speakers, concerns about the proposed affiliation were qualified with statements that they are not categorically opposed to the affiliation, provided certain conditions are met to protect the community.

“I am not necessarily against the merger, but we need transparency, and a community-focused agreement,” said Cherie Poirier, development coordinator with the Eastern Area Health Education Council.

“We are opposed to it as it stands," Pratt added. "We’re asking for service guarantees on basic access to services” and on how costs will be controlled.

“We’d like L+M and Yale to sit down and negotiate a benefit agreement around our concerns,” she said.

L+M spokesman Mike O’Farrell said OHCA has the authority to deny, approve or approve the application with conditions. He emphasized that there would be “no loss of local control” if L+M affiliates with the larger system.

Bill Stanley, vice president of development and community relations at L+M, added that the risks of losing local access to health care are far greater if L+M remains a small, independent nonprofit hospital instead of partnering with Yale-New Haven, also a nonprofit institution.

“The worst thing that could happen is that this doesn’t happen,” he said. “If there’s a concern for programs and jobs, the concern is much more grave” without the affiliation.

“We’re on a trajectory to lose more than $20 million this year,” he said. “That’s unsustainable.”

j.benson@theday.com