He was only admitting the obvious. Still, it was refreshing to hear Lynnwood Police Chief Steve Jensen concede the city’s financial dependence on traffic-enforcement cameras. Without the revenue they generate, Jensen told Herald writers Scott North and Rikki King last week, he’d probably have to lay off seven or eight police officers.

Safety, long touted by Lynnwood police and other city officials as the sole motivation behind the ticketing cameras, is now at best a secondary consideration. Accident data from intersections in Lynnwood where cameras are used to issue red-light tickets has yet to show that they’ve reduced collisions.

Lynnwood hasn’t reported comparisons of the kinds of red-light violations being ticketed — for example, slow right-hand turns without a full stop compared with drivers speeding straight through a red light. But a study done in Mukilteo by American Traffic Solutions, the Arizona company that installed and operates Lynnwood’s cameras, suggests that the vast majority of tickets are probably for slow right-hand turns without a full stop. You know, the kind nearly everyone makes sometimes, even cops.

Which would explain why they’ve done little or nothing for safety, but been such a boon to the city’s budget. Lynnwood collected more than $4 million in camera-generated fines last year, a windfall that has offset some of the recession’s drag on tax revenues.

Now, a city that already has lost nearly a quarter of its police force, and must cut the 2012 budget by at least $3.5 million more, needs the money from camera-generated fines.

What if the cameras really do start enhancing safety as advertised? They’re supposed to train drivers to obey the law, which means fewer tickets over time, and less revenue. Yet the city has tied ongoing spending, in the form of police positions, to a revenue stream that should be expected to shrink.

Lynnwood officials appear to have painted the city itself into a nasty fiscal corner — one of the object lessons it has painfully offered other cities that might consider cameras.

Another is the futility of pretending that revenue isn’t a major motivator. Citizens are smart enough to see through that, and the charade breeds distrust in government. That helps explain why more than vocal minorities have risen in opposition to cameras in Mukilteo, Monroe and elsewhere. Blatantly deceptive tactics employed by a former American Traffic Solutions official, chronicled in earlier reporting by North and King, haven’t helped either.

Whether a more honest approach would lead to broad public acceptance of ticketing cameras remains to be seen. We haven’t seen it tried.