Residents pitch in to fix potholes in Hamtramck

Image 1 of 2

In Hamtramck it isn't city or state crews doing repairs - instead it's the residents who drive the streets every day.

Welcome to Hamtramck or perhaps more fittingly, "Crater City."
 
 "I'm a mechanic and I get a lot of phone calls talking about bent rims, bent suspension pieces," said Jeffrey Salazar. "A lot of work that wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the pot holes being as big as they are."

 Potholes populate roadways there, street after street, block after block.
 
"You really feel like you're going to hit somebody's car that's parked on the side because you're really dodging the potholes all over," said resident Ron Orr. 
 
But a few people put their heads and pocketbooks together to help the city patch up the pits.
 
"They're doing what they can with what they have," said Jonathan Weier. "We're just filling out the stuff that they can't."
 
Weier heads up this hipster coalition of pothole patchers, a problem Hamtramck's financial woes provoked and worsened.

 "The same thing going on in Hamtramck is what's going on in just about every other city across Michigan right now," said Mayor Karen Majewski. "Everyone is dealing with serious road or street issues and they're simply isn't enough money to address them all."
 
Unless of course residents put up their money or crowd source funds and do the work themselves.
 
"If everyone who had a pothole in front of their house bought a $10 bag of cold patch and fixed it, and tapped it down in front of their own place," said Maritza Garibay. "We wouldn't have the problem that we have."
 
"More power to them, I have to say," Majewski said.