R.J. Berry Enterprises, city registration form dated September 22, 2009. (photograph by Marjorie Childress)

R.J. Berry Enterprises, city registration form dated September 22, 2009. (photograph by Marjorie Childress)

Under scrutiny over reports that his “family business” is actually owned by his wife, Albuquerque mayoral candidate Richard  Berry seems to have suddenly remembered he hadn’t properly registered his own company, R.J. Berry Enterprises.

He registered the business with the City of Albuquerque just this week.

The business registration form for R.J. Berry Enterprises lists its product as “consulting services” with a start date for the company being September 1, 2008.  The registration was filed on September 22, 2009, and was approved September 23.

A representative at the city’s Treasury Department said that it is a new registration, not a renewal.

The company was registered with the state prior to this week. Berry apparently renewed his state registration on May 22, 2009. The “taxable year end date” on that PRC record is 12/31/08, and the purpose is listed as “development.”

The Independent has asked Berry to provide us with information about R.J. Berry Enterprises, but he’s failed to do so, although his campaign promised financial information about the company for a number of days leading up to a televised mayoral debate Wednesday evening.

Central to Berry’s campaign for mayor is the claim that he is more qualified than his opponents in part because he has experience running a business. He often says he’d run the city more like a business.

Which begs several questions, including:  How long has R.J. Enterprises been in business? What does it do? Does Berry work on it full time or does he, as he has said, work “side by side” with his wife at her business, Cumbre Construction? What is his theory of management?

Berry failed to respond to our inquiries today about why he registered the company with the City of Albuquerque just this week. He’s not the first and probably won’t be the last person who forgets to register his business with the city.

On his candidate financial disclosure form, Berry lists several other sources of income.

12,000 Constitution, LLC, was organized in 2002, and has a “principal agent” named John Myers.

RGR, Ltd was organized in 1998, and doesn’t have a purpose listed. Richard Berry is listed as one of the “organizers” of that company.

He also lists Paisano Partners, LLC, but that specific name does not show up on the PRC website.

Then there is Cumbre Construction, the company owned by his wife, Maria, who for the past 10 years has participated in federal programs to help her build the business as a minority and woman-owned enterprise. Federal contracts, obtained by the company in part due to its participation in the program, amount to almost $50 million between 2000 and 2008, so its likely that this is the primary business with which Berry spends his time. He hasn’t responded to our inquiries, so we can’t say for sure.