Wise old sayings become what they are because — no surprise here — they contain wisdom.

Old sayings like “Too many cooks spoil the broth” explain themselves.

We wonder if this might be the pending case with the Kaufman House.

Last week, the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau focused a vortex of attention on the Zelienople restaurant, which closed two years ago after a fire — damages which, for whatever reason, the insurers refused to cover.

Tourism President Jack Cohen, standing with several dozen officials from around Butler County, offered broad plans Friday to buy the historic landmark Kaufman House and convert it into a boutique hotel with about 20 rooms and a restaurant. The sale could happen as early as this week.

The plan is for three nonprofit agencies — the Butler County Tourism Foundation, Butler County Community College and the Butler County Redevelopment Authority — to form a partnership, buy and renovate the property, then lease it to a for-profit operator. This would happen by 2016.

The plan also is to construct a state-of-the-art kitchen, coffee shop and lounge, and to use the premises as a training ground for BC3 students preparing to work in the hospitality management trade.

A Zelienople official at Friday’s news conference called it one of the most complicated deals he’s ever seen. It is nebulous, even to those who put it together — Cohen admits the plan is still in its infancy — and the Redevelopment Authority’s role in the partnership appears to involve writing grant applications as well as the building’s rehabilitation.

The idea, said Redevelopment Director Perry O’Malley, is to finance the deal with a combination of state grants and a mortgage.

This has the makings of a great project, assuming it proceeds as Cohen describes it — and that’s an accomplishment in itself.

However, it’s worrisome that such a project would be funded with state tax dollars. If it’s a good deal — and there’s nothing to indicate it isn’t — then any of a number of local investors or other capital sources should be willing to risk piggy-backing their dollars on top of a conventional mortgage. It seems risky to saddle taxpayers with the success or failure of the venture.

Carrying it one step further, what’s the opinion of other businesses in the Zelienople area — specifically, hotel, restaurant and coffee shop operators — about competition from a government-sponsored agency whose primary role is to generate tourism? As a hotel owner, will it take unfair advantage of its public, nonprofit status and focus its tourism efforts on itself?

It does remind us of another wise old saying: The devil is in the details — and there are many details yet to work out.

All the more reason that, if this project advances, it does so with the highest level of accountability and transparency to the taxpayers who ultimately will own a share of it.