Harford County residents can now watch public meetings online, officials announced Tuesday.

County Executive David Craig said the new feature is part of an effort to provide open government.

But it requires a high-speed Internet connection to access that content; residents with a dial-up connection won’t be able to watch the meetings. All county libraries, though, have public-access computers with high-speed connections, said Jim Richardson, director of the county’s Department of Economic Development.

The present turnaround time for posting county-sponsored public meetings online is about three days, but according to Cheryl Landreth of Harford’s Office of Information Technology, the county hopes to cut that time down to the next day, and eventually, people will be able to watch meeting webcasts in realtime.

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Residents will also be able to eventually e-mail questions to live Webcast meetings, Craig said.

As to the cost to taxpayers, Craig used his right hand to form a goose egg.

“We were able to do all of this in-house,” he said.

The public school system is in the process of also making their meetings accessible online, a spokesman said.