COLLEGE FEARS LOSING FUNDS.

Byline: Sharline Chiang Daily News Staff Writer

Five years after shoring up $4.7 million in state funding to expand its campus, Mission College administrators today will explain during two meetings how they plan to meet a Dec. 30 deadline to avoid losing the funds.

The campus will lose the money unless administrators can close a deal to purchase part of an adjacent county-owned golf course - or execute an alternate plan to buy an existing office building - by the deadline.

Mission already has won three deadline extensions since 1993. The money was earmarked to help the 22-1/2-acre campus accommodate growth projections for students living in the Northeast Valley.

Administrators for years quietly planned to expand onto El Cariso Golf Course and move the links onto adjacent land. But golfers, hang gliders and others who use the adjacent land complained when they learned of the plans this year.

Still faced with public objections, the college has started to look at short-term solutions, including purchasing a 30,000-square-foot building in San Fernando and turning it into a satellite site.

``We still have a ways to go,'' Barbara Perkins, a consultant hired by Mission to work on community relations, said Tuesday. ``Given the time frame, the biggest challenge is that we don't have the time to ensure without a doubt that all groups are happy.''

Mission officials and consultants will meet in closed session today with the Los Angeles Community College District board to update them on the college's predicament and present formal recommendations.

Tonight at 7, administrators will meet with community groups and outdoor enthusiasts who use land in the Pacoima Wash next to El Cariso Golf Course. The groups, including hang gliders, softball players, equestrians and golfers, have protested Mission's plan.

``My perception is that they have a kind of manifest destiny attitude,'' said John B. Laing, an attorney and director of the Sylmar Independent Baseball League, which uses the wash area. College officials want ``to take over the county golf course and to hell to anyone who stands in their way.''

Mission President William Norlund acknowledged poor public relations.

``At the time my predecessor was there, the feeling was, Let's make the deal with the county so we can deal with the public and community later,'' Norlund said.

``What we should have done was gotten this out to the public first.''

College officials predict enrollment could double, to about 13,000, in 10 years. That would overwhelm the campus unless new buildings and parking lots are added, administrators said.

But critics call expansion unnecessary and point to Mission's drop in students.

Enrollment peaked in 1991-92 when 10,000 students enrolled over the course of the year. Last year, the equivalent total was about 8,000. This fall, the school has enrolled about 6,500 students.

However, college officials argue the campus is actually more crowded today, since students are taking more classes and staying on campus longer.