Who's missing the money now?

Surely I'm not the only one who gets the impression that this is really an argument over whose friends get to lose the money next.

The issue arose as part of a larger debate over spending on an executive-branch office of economic development and the Nola Business Alliance, a nonprofit organization funded by a mix of public and private funds and operated independent of City Hall. Fielkow believes that the public-private partnership should take over the job of the city office. While the UDAG money won’t be spent to hire new employees for either organization, the fund is relevant to the debate because its mismanagement has been used to bolster arguments that economic development funds should be managed by business professionals rather than City Hall officials.

In short, Arnie is proposing that we address the problem of publicly accountable public officials mismanaging funds by removing the "publicly accountable" part of that altogether and just allowing a private club of businesspeople to pass the money back and forth amongst themselves. What could go wrong with that?