Update: Perditzman called back to say he patched a total of 193 potholes.

It’s pothole season in Minnesota, and one frustrated Maplewood man has decided to take matters into his own hands.

Bill Perditzman, a retired construction worker, got out his tools and set to patching the neighborhood pavement himself Tuesday.

“I was out west skiing earlier this year. The moguls out west are smaller than the patches they put down,” he said of the city’s previous fixes, which have now deteriorated during the spring pothole season. “It’s a disaster.”

Perditzman lives in south Maplewood and said he was tired of the wear and tear the street was putting on his vehicles, so he decided to do something about it. He took advantage of a sale on blacktop at Menards and bought 27 bags at $6.95 a piece.

Then he set out in his red pickup truck, attaching a donation bucket to the side and a sign on the cab that reads, “Repairing road with my own money. Donations welcome.”

His neighbors on Dahl Avenue and Dorland Road were grateful enough to contribute $272 toward the project near McKnight Road and Linwood Avenue.

One of those neighbors is Dan Ernst, who has been petitioning the city to get the streets repaved. The city consistently patches the holes, he said, but has not repaved them in years.

“In some streets in south Maplewood, it’s like a third-world country street,” he said. He appreciated Perditzman’s initiative.

City officials say they’re doing the best they can with the money they have, and to hang on, because Perditzman’s neighborhood is on the list to be repaved next summer.

“It’s on all of our minds,” Maplewood City Council Member Bryan Smith said. “Roads, code enforcement and taxes is what we hear about the most.”

He said people tell him they want roads fixed and taxes lowered — to which he replies, “Pick one. Roads cost money.”

Steven Love, the city’s public works director and city engineer, explained it this way: Maplewood has 135 miles of city streets and has resources to fix about 3.5 miles each year.

This year, the city is focusing on streets south of Lower Afton Road in the Crestview, Forest and Mailand neighborhoods and streets north of Maryland Avenue and west of Century Avenue on Ivy Avenue and Ferndale Street.

“We certainly aren’t forgetting about that area,” he said of Perditzman’s neighborhood.

The city has been looking for ways to increase revenue for street repair, using grants, charging fees and assessing residents for improvement projects. That last one is what worries Perditzman and Ernst.

If residents don’t agree to help pay for the street improvements — which could cost thousands, depending on the size and how many neighbors share the burden — the city could move on to another project.