VIDALIA — As part of a rebranding process to update the City of Vidalia’s “look,” the city’s information technology department is in the final stages of creating a new website that will eventually allow residents to pay their bills online.

The new website will keep one of the city’s old domain names, www.cityofvidaliala.com, which currently hosts the city’s old website.

A previous domain name that the city also owned, www.cityofvidalia.com, was purposely abandoned by the city recently in an attempt to brand Vidalia with Louisiana, and not confuse the city on the move with Vidalia, Ga.

“I’m trying to get our website going again in the right direction, and we just felt like the ‘la’ on the end set us apart from the other Vidalia in Georgia,” IT Director Bob Buseck said. “It just made more sense to keep the ‘cityofvidalia.com’ domain instead of the other one.”

The city’s old website was previously managed by Concordia Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jamie Wiley, but the transition to shift the website under Buseck’s department began soon after his arrival three years ago.

“When I first came to the city, we had three different e-mail addresses, multiple websites, and it was just too much stuff going on,” Buseck said. “I registered that new domain name and fought to get everything under that domain name.”

Wiley was previously listed as the city’s website manager in the city’s 2011-2012 budget, and was paid an annual salary of $14,904.

City Manager Ken Walker said the workload of managing the website was shifted to the IT department, but the $14,904 annual salary will remain with Wiley for her new role as secretary to the Vidalia Port Director Wyly Gilfoil.

Gilfoil was hired in June on a consultant basis, after the city signed a memorandum of understanding contract with the Lake Providence Port Commission to pay them for Gilfoil’s services.

Walker said Gilfoil’s office is now located at the Concordia Chamber of Commerce, and Wiley is assisting him during his work to finish the final two stages of the Vidalia Port.

After the decision was made to shift the website management to the IT department, Buseck said the city hired Consilium of Natchez to construct the website.

While the website will provide basic information such as city departments and contact information, Buseck said it will eventually also have valuable tools to help residents.

“Once we have everything up and running, you’ll be able to fill out forms online, pay bills online and pretty much do everything from the website,” Buseck said. “It’s a really good looking page, and it’s going to help the citizens of Vidalia.”

Buseck said the new website is expected to launch in a few months.