When Gov. Eliot Spitzer makes a brief stop in Auburn Thursday morning to talk to local chamber of commerce members about the upstate economy, we expect he will exude the same confidence in the region's turnaround that he displayed during his State of Upstate address a month ago.

This time, however, we hope to hear some specific plans for Auburn and Cayuga County.

For one thing, we'd like to hear Spitzer say that the state is finally going to collect sales taxes on goods sold by Native Americans to non-native customers.

Local businesses selling tobacco and gasoline have been faced with unfair competition for too long, and this issue demands action #- not more talk.

We hope Cayuga County farmers will see a fair share of revitalization funds targeted for food processing, expanding markets and developing alternative fuels.

We hope to hear that the state is going to do more to control costs and cut into the state budget gap of more than $4 billion.

We hope to hear that money for infrastructure improvements and small-business development makes its way here before it gets gobbled up by larger cities.

And we hope Spitzer's proposal to invest in the state's “intellectual capital” will include investments in teachers and programming at Cayuga Community College, an essential part of the future of this area, its businesses and its workforce.

We remain optimistic that at least a portion of Spitzer's proposed $1 billion upstate revitalization fund will make it into the next state budget, and we were glad to hear him say in January that agriculture and its related industries were part of the plan, but now we need to hear exactly what this area can expect in terms of support from the state.