py2 to 3 base64 issues

[Larry Martell]

I have some python 2 code:

def decode(key, string):
       decoded_chars = []
       string = base64.urlsafe_b64decode(string)
       for i in range(len(string)):
           key_c = key[i % len(key)]
           encoded_c = chr(abs(ord(string[i]) - ord(key_c) % 256))
           decoded_chars.append(encoded_c)
       decoded_string = "".join(decoded_chars)
       return decoded_string

and if I call it like this in py2 it works as expected:

s = 'V3NYVY95iImnnJWCmqphWFFzU1qvqsV6x83Mxa7HipZitZeMxbe709jJtbfW6Y6blQ=='
key = '!@#$VERYsecRet)('
decode(key, s)

In py3 it fails with

TypeError: ord() expected string of length 1, but int found

I know that in py3 base64.urlsafe_b64decode is returning bytes not
chars and that is what that is happening, and I thought the solution
would be to decode it, but what codec would I use for this?