Oconto County mission statement gets final OK

OCONTO — Oconto County is officially a great place to live, work and play from the shores of Green Bay to the Nicolet National Forest.

The Oconto County Board on Thursday gave its final blessing to its mission statement, developed over a series of meetings and homework exercises going back close to a year.

“What a great way to end a year — by adopting a mission statement,” said Dale Mohr, community development educator with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, which was known simply as UW-Extension when the process began.

The statement: “The Oconto County Board of Supervisors ensures reasonable services while providing oversight to each department and the county’s resources so that residents and visitors can have a great place to live, work and play from the shores of Green Bay to the Nicolet National Forest.”

A new county branding statement evolved from the process, as well: a more concise phrasing of “Live, Work and Play from Green Bay to Nicolet.”

Mohr has visited the finance/insurance committee and the full county board several times over the past year to develop first a more lengthy vision statement and then the punchier mission statement. The process involved identifying the county’s core values and services and condensing that information into a brief description.

“There was some feeling that the phrase ‘ensure reasonable services’ sounded a little like legalese, but in the end the finance committee was satisfied with the wording,” Mohr said.