WINDHAM – After two years with Scott Hayman chairing the Windham Town Council, the board elected new leadership at its meeting Tuesday night.

Matt Noel, who was elected last week to his second three-year term, will replace Hayman as chairman, and Kevin Call will succeed Noel as vice chairman.

Noel, who has served on the Finance Committee during his time on the council, is known as being meticulous about the budget. Councilors cited that reputation as a reason why he’d serve well as chairman.

“I think there is no one more suited or qualified for this job,” Hayman said of Noel. “I respect him. I respect his views. We don’t always agree. He drives me nuts with his detail-orientated stuff, but you need that at this seat.”

Unlike last year’s contentious vote to determine council leadership – an ugly process that saw outbursts of frustration by Hayman and Noel toward their fellow councilors and the eventual seating of Hayman to serve a rare second-straight term as chairman – this year’s choice was quick and unanimous. The synchronous board, sitting Tuesday without newly elected Councilor Peter Anania and the vacationing David Nadeau, voted 5-0 for Noel.

The council also voted unanimously to elect Call as vice chairman. The chairman and vice chairman wield some power in their ability to set the council’s meeting agenda. Other councilors must request the chairman put an item on an agenda for discussion. Call, who played a key role in bringing the sewer vote to the November ballot, was praised by his fellow councilors and said he looked forward to working with Noel and Town Manager Tony Plante on town business.

In nominating Call for the vice chairmanship, Hayman described Call as “very qualified” and “the right man for the job.”

Councilor Dennis Welch, who was re-elected to a three-year term last week, praised Call, as well.

“I’ve worked with Kevin for the last year on the Appointments Committee and I think he will do a good job. He’s got my support,” Welch said.

Noel said Call, who is in the last year of a three-year term, is “quiet, he’s got influence and knows what we’re trying to accomplish up here. I think he speaks well for the town of Windham.”

The council also elected Hayman as the new parliamentarian, a position Nadeau held last year. The parliamentarian is consulted when matters of procedure arise, and is supposed to be an expert in Robert’s Rules of Order. After Carol Waig, a former councilor who came up short in her bid for a seat Nov. 6, spoke in public comment to the need for the parliamentarian to attend classes, a practice she said routinely took place prior to 2010, Hayman said he’d be willing to do so.

Councilor Tommy Gleason nominated Nadeau for the position, but the motion failed 4-1. Call then nominated Hayman, and Gleason threw his support behind Hayman, making the vote unanimous.

The three-member Finance Committee was also determined Tuesday night. It will consist of Noel, Call and Anania.

The committee is in charge of going through the town manager’s proposed budget with a fine-toothed comb. The committee can bring forth substantive policy changes, such as in 2010 when the committee proposed merging police and fire dispatch with Cumberland County. The influence is limited since the committee’s recommendations need to be approved by the full council.

Anania, who owns several businesses in South Windham and across the state, was praised for his business acumen. Anania has already served a 10-month stint on the council in 2011 when he was appointed to fill out former Chairman Bill Tracy’s term after Tracy resigned for personal reasons.

“I worked with Peter Anania in my first year as chairman when we appointed him to take over Bill Tracy’s seat, and I know [from] watching Finance Committee meetings that he and Chairman Noel butted heads quite frequently, but I think the budget they came out with that year was very good,” Hayman said. “I know that Mr. Anania is a successful businessman in town. I know that he knows finances. And when you have a resource available to you like him, I don’t think that you can turn your back or not put a man with his type of knowledge to good use, and I think [a seat on the Finance Committee is] a great use for him.”

The last of the committees to be filled Tuesday night was the Appointments Committee, which is in charge of finding and vetting potential members of the town’s various subcommittees. The committee can be quite influential depending on who they choose to nominate for boards. In recent years, for example, the Appointments Committee has been criticized for picking pro-development appointees. However, all nominations are forwarded to the council for a vote.

While several “combinations and permutations” of potential committee members, as Noel referred to it, were brought to the floor, the council finally voted unanimously for Gleason, Welch and Hayman.

The board was unable to appoint representatives to the Greater Portland Council of Governments and the Windham Economic Development Corp. The latter position received interest from Gleason and Hayman, and the board seemed inclined to nominate Nadeau, who was the only councilor not to receive a posting on any committee, to represent the town on the council of governments. The council said they would wait for Anania and Nadeau to return to make those decisions, expected at the Dec. 11 meeting.

Dennis Welch, left, and Matthew Noel were sworn in by Windham Town Clerk Linda Morrell at Tuesday night’s Windham Town Council meeting. The two were re-elected last week to serve three-year terms. Noel was tapped to serve as council chairman for the coming year.