Congressional Democratic candidate Shelia Smoot visited Demopolis for the second time in as many months, coming to the city on Thursday and visiting several locations.

Smoot spent much of the day in town, visiting the West Alabama Senior Center, City Hall and the Theo Ratliff Activity Center.

Smoot, a Jefferson County Commission member, is campaigning to fill the District 7 seat currently held by U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, who is running for governor.

“Government is just a way for me to do what I’ve been doing all of my life, and that’s helping people,” she said. “I can just do it bigger and better by going to Congress and bringing it all back home.

“I also like to pride myself in working across the aisle. I work with three Republicans every day. At the end of the day, when we agree to disagree, we get things done as a team. I feel like I can work with the other Congressional members.”

Smoot said she helped to expedite the grant for the Theo Ratliff Activity Center.

Smoot hosts the radio show “Shelia Smoot on Your Side” and was a TV journalist on WBRC-6 and WVTM-13 in Birmingham.

“What differentiates me from the field of the candidates is my record of service before I got elected to serve,” she said. “I’ve been doing service for a long time.

“We have built senior citizens centers under my leadership, community centers, new housing. We brought jobs. We’ve got our third data operations center going in at one of our parks, and we just got Home Depot.”

Smoot said that this region of Alabama should focus on bringing in jobs that fit its area, dealing with agriculture and the waterways.

“First, we’ve got to have an action plan, not a piecemeal plan,” she said. “Secondly, we have got to explore those jobs that we think are not attainable: ‘green’ jobs, technology, biotech, agribusiness and aquabusiness. You’ve got all the water, you’ve got all the trees, the soil. You can create a model that brings in jobs around those very resources.”