MILLBURY (CBS) — A Millbury resident is just trying to lay low now after his good deed caught flack from town officials.

Thomas Perry was moved to pave a pothole after a Milton teacher was killed a few weeks ago in Boston from a flying manhole cover.

“It was like she could have swam in basically the hole,” one woman said holding her small child. “It was pretty big.”

On Sunday afternoon, Perry patched it, but instead of earning an official Millbury “attaboy” he was ordered to “knock it off.”

“If I have a hole in the middle of my driveway, you don’t have a right to come in and fix it, even if you’re doing me a favor,” said Millbury Town Manager Bob Spain.

Town officials frowned on Perry’s fix as an unauthorized repair on public property using something other than the DPW’s preferred hot asphalt method — something he’d practiced on another pothole next to his home.

“We like Good Samaritans and all that,” Spain said. “Instead of filling it tell us where it is and we’ll do it.”

Perry isn’t just a Good Samaritan. He works as the sales manager for Paving and Maintenance, Inc., a company that sells pot hole patch material.

“His goal is to sell product,” Spain said.

Perry didn’t answer his door and did not return a call from WBZ-TV.

“I’m not upset with him,” Spain said. “You need to follow our rules.”

Perry told WBZ NewsRadio that he used a product that is more durable than what the town uses, and he has sold it to nearby communities.

The town will not take action against Perry, but at a town meeting the board reminded Perry that citizens cannot take it upon themselves to do a repair.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030’s Lana Jones reports