When Saâd Tekiout posted a viral video of himself filling a Montreal pothole on April 26, he probably didn’t expect it to end with the mayor personally reaching out to him. But here we are.
Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada announced Wednesday that the city is expanding its pothole repair budget, and in the same breath invited Tekiout, the landscaper who became something of a folk hero after going viral for patching city streets on his own dime, to apply for one of the new manual patching contracts the city is opening up.
“We want to make sure he applies to this, like many other contractors can do,” she said in a press conference. “Because it’s manual labour he’s already doing.”
When Tekiout’s video first blew up, Martinez Ferrada responded in his Instagram comments, praising his initiative while firmly noting that “it is not up to you or your team to have to fill in the potholes yourselves.”
The mayor left an Instagram comment under Tekiout’s April 26 video. @marquize.7 | Instagram
She later told MTL Blog that nobody was going to send him a cease and desist letter, but the message at the time was pretty clear.
In the weeks since, Tekiout’s operation has grown well beyond that first video. His GoFundMe campaign, “On répare Montréal, rejoins le mouvement!”, has raised over $33,000 from hundreds of donors.
Tekiout, who posts videos online under the name “Marquize,” was even offered $3,000 by Canadian Tire to cover the costs of the equipment he needs to continue his project.
Meanwhile, locals have been flooding his comments with pothole addresses, and he and his partner have kept showing up to fill them free of charge.
While what he’s doing is not technically legal (he faces fines up to $1,000), the city’s position on his activity seems to have softened considerably, though officials aren’t without reservations.
Luis Miranda, the city’s executive committee member responsible for public services, warned that potholes patched improperly in wet conditions will reopen. Martinez Ferrada also questioned the materials and technique Tekiout has been using, while acknowledging he has “become the symbol of citizens’ frustration.”
Tekiout, who was invited to Wednesday’s press conference (he didn’t attend for unspecified security reasons), wasn’t backing down. “It’s not a permanent method, but an emergency method,” he said. “My method works.” As for the mayor’s contract offer, he said he’d consider it, but made clear his mission isn’t changing regardless.
“I will continue this movement until Montreal will be perfect. I don’t want to see any potholes here.”
On the money side, the city is adding $1 million for boroughs that have burned through their budgets or fielded the most 311 complaints, $125,000 dedicated to manual patching on Notre-Dame Street, and another $1 million in open-market contracts. That’s on top of the $2.5 million already sent to boroughs as part of the city’s earlier pothole action plan.
“We’re stepping on the gas to fill more potholes because we’re really going through the worst spring we’ve had in years,” the mayor noted.
The mayor reached out to Tekiout via Instagram on Tuesday to request a meeting.
The two have yet to connect in person.
