On the one hand, it's a tempest in a teapot. The city charter is explicit about who gets to select the CLEO, and it's the Police Commission. The fact that they decided this time to try appointing a selection committee, and then ignore its recommendation, isn't terribly suspicious. Just stupid. I've seen this exact scenario play out at various jobs over the years. I've even been on an ignored committee. It does reflect a lack of faith by leadership in the committee's recommendation, but not necessarily anything else.
On the other hand, if one of those 2 "added" candidates ends up with the job, it can easily be perceived as a fix. Since the selection committee didn't manage to select the actual correct candidate, just ignore their recommendation.
Two members of the selection committee resigned. Whoopee. They were pissed that they put in work for no good reason. EIther way, their job was over until we need yet another police chief, so their resignation isn't exactly damaging.
The no-show is not being fairly represented from what I can tell. She was asked to attend, and replied that it was problematic for her to be there at that time, but that she would try. Classifying that as a negative action is like telling your friends you're pissed because they didn't meet you at the movie after telling you "We'll try to make it."
So either the fix is in, in which case nothing that's happening matters, or it isn't, in which case nothing that's happening matters.