Such a small group makes it look like another hand-picked committee of the "ruling elite" trying to stiff the members out of their own denomination.
That is probably exactly what it is. But please understand, all of this is pretty much completely invisible to your average pew-sitting Episcopalian. Those people have lives, jobs, families, houses, etc., and have better things to do (they think) than to sit on boring, interminable church committee meetings. Do you know how hard it is to get your average parishioner to agree to stand for the Vestry (board of directors)?
Few bother even to read the minutes of Vestry meetings -- even in my (Anglican) church where we post the minutes on a bulletin board in the Parish Hall! Much less do these people they think they can track or even understand what goes on in the hierarchy above their church.
And the hierarchy keeps it that way. There are no reports to parishioners, for example. And the hierarchy uses obfuscative language such as "resources relating to the ethics and pastoral theology of..." guaranteed to make even an inquisitive church-member's eyes glaze over. ("Oh, this is way beyond me!")
This leads to situations, stories, such as Episcopal Church, I Weep For Thee. The signs are all there, if one looks and understands, and have been for a long time. But it always seems to take some momentous trigger for the recognition to occur.
And this is why pretty obviously hand-picked committees are so often able to function so openly.