Dallas City Councilman Adam Bazaldua has been visiting Japan, raising the question of how much the trip is costing taxpayers.
As a result of Bazaldua being out of the country, when the council votes on next year’s budget on Wednesday, he will attend virtually. Now, officials are raising questions about spending transparency and accountability.
The council plans to vote on next year’s $5.2 billion budget on September 17.
Mayor Eric Johnson and council members have been pushing for weeks to cut wasteful spending, as the city finds itself in a millions-of-dollars deficit. Meanwhile, questions are being raised about whether Bazaldua is using tax dollars to visit Japan.
“There is a huge contrast between one council member taking a second international trip to Japan, and most other council members working late nights and weekends to create budget amendments to reduce the tax rate and increase pay for our public safety officers,” said City Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn to The Dallas Express.
Bazaldua will not return in time for the budget vote, so he is planning to attend virtually, according to WFAA. As The Dallas Express reported, when he attended a meeting virtually in the past, he logged off during the vote, so he was counted “absent.”
The Japan Trip
Bazaldua – who does not chair any committees – posted September 15 that he was representing Dallas “on an international stage” alongside an official from Dallas’ sister city Sendai, Japan. He was scheduled to speak on September 16 at the 2025 U.S.-Japan Sister Cities Summit.
“We reflected on a relationship that began under Mayor Ron Kirk and deepened when Dallas stepped up to support Sendai in the wake of the devastating 2011 tsunami,” Bazaldua wrote.
Bazaldua reportedly met with local leaders and toured sites where Dallas helped Sendai rebuild after the tsunami, he said. Later this week, he was planning to represent Dallas at the World Fair Expo.
“This is a chance to elevate our city’s global footprint, foster new partnerships, and open the door for more economic, cultural, and educational exchange,” he wrote.
The city is at least partially paying for Bazaldua’s trip with federal grant money for “rebuilding international business and tourism,” according to WFAA.
The Dallas Express asked Bazaldua’s office for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication.
The Dallas Express also filed public records requests for expenses regarding the Japan trip.
Questions of Transparency, Accountability
Mendelsohn spoke with Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Moreno, who chairs the ad hoc administrative committee, she said.
She asked “for an agenda item requiring all international travel by councilmembers and city staff paid by tax dollars or city funds, to be approved by the full city council to provide transparency and accountability.”
Damien LeVeck, executive director of the nonprofit Dallas HERO, told The Dallas Express he is seeking answers about Bazaldua’s Japan trip.
“I’d like to know A) How much money is being spent, B) What is this being spent on? C) What fund is it coming out of, and D) How can the city, namely [City Manager] Kim Tolbert, justify this in light of everything else?” he said.
LeVeck requested records from the city about Bazaldua’s trip, but said he has not yet received the requested documents. He also pointed to repeated requests for Dallas’ general ledger, which the city repeatedly denied – claiming it does not exist, as The Dallas Express previously reported.
“The city has not been transparent at all,” LeVeck said. “The city is notoriously opaque about how they spend their money.”
The city was in $6.9 billion of debt in 2024, as The Dallas Express reported at the time. As of 2025, according to city reports, Dallas owed $7.75 billion in debt service. Earlier this summer, Dallas dropped out of America’s top-10 economies.
“We have businesses that are fleeing, residents who are fleeing. The tax base is shrinking, and we are drowning in debt,” LeVeck said. “This is the kind of spending that has to stop if we’re going to actually dig ourselves out of this hole.”
Previous Trips
Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux traveled to Qatar in August to plan the 2026 FIFA World Cup, The Dallas Express reported at the time. Officials said the trip brought “no expense to the city of Dallas,” though Qatar has historically supported terrorism.
The month before, Mayor Eric Johnson visited Tanzania, where he signed a sister city pact during an eight-day visit, as The Dallas Express also reported. According to WFAA, the trip cost more than $40,000, and a private foundation paid $13,000 of the cost. Johnson published multiple daily readouts of the visit.
Bazaldua and four other council members traveled to Japan on public funding in 2024, as The Dallas Express previously reported. This cost taxpayers more than $50,000 total.
At the time, officials said they were traveling to Tokyo to study its high-speed rail system, considering a Dallas-to-Houston line. That project now faces an uncertain future, according to Newsweek, after investors withdrew support and the federal government cut nearly $70 million in funding.
“The roads are crumbling, the public safety is underfunded – we have an underfunded police and fire pension. The city is drowning in debt, they’re about to take on more debt,” LeVeck said. “We don’t have any money, and they are spending it still like there’s nothing wrong.”