At today's back-to-school press conference, I asked Mayor Richard Daley what he had to say to taxpayers who might be concerned whether WYCC is spending their money appropriately.

WYCC, you'll recall, is the public television station owned by the City Colleges of Chicago. We broke an exclusive story yesterday about documents suggesting the station used its budget to produce free videos of powerful politicians and friends of Chancellor Wayne Watson.

The videos, which were never aired, showcased golf events, a fundraiser and a "State Senate California Trip" in connection with Emil Jones, who was the state senate president at the time, Todd Stroger, then an alderman, and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, our reporting showed.

It's tough to get the mayor to talk at length in response to questions hurled at a press conference, but he did speak out against the spending at WYCC.

"They shouldn't be using anything for political purposes," the mayor said.

Meanwhile, I talked a few minutes ago with Louise Filkins, the fantastically helpful spokeswoman for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The corporation is a nonprofit agency set up by Congress to fund public broadcasting stations across the country. Last year, it provided WYCC with $865,000 in grants.

Filkin says CPB regulations prevent stations from using federal dollars for programming that would benefit a particular candidate or party.

Stations that violate those rules, she says, can lose future CPB funding, and may have to repay the corporation for money misspent in the past.

The agency has an inspector general's office that investigates such violations. But officials there can't comment on whether they have an open investigation at WYCC, she says.

She also says stations have to certify every two years that they've obeyed those rules.

Depending on whether WYCC spent federal dollars to produce the videos, and what kind of representations they made to the CPB, officials could be prosecuted for mail fraud, legal experts say.

We've asked Filkin for copies of WYCC's filings, and we'll update as soon as we hear more.

What do you think? Did something criminal happen at WYCC?