The Cambridge City Council last night defeated by a 5-3 vote a resolution introduced by the Nonviolent Direct Action Group (N-DAG) to remove the offices of Draft Board 17 from Cambridge City Hall.

Supporters of the N-DAG resolution urged passage of the proposal as "one small step this council can take to show your disapproval of the expanding Indochina war."

Last night's resolution follows two months of N-DAG attempts to have Draft Board 17 removed from City Hall. Following a demonstration in December and an unsuccessful interview with Deputy State Selective Service Director Paul Feeney, N-DAG workers have been manning a draft counseling service in an anteroom outside the draft board offices.

The three Councilors supporting the order were Barbara Ackermann, Thomas Danehy and Thomas Mahoney, Ackermann said in urging passage of the proposal, "We must take every opportunity now, while the press reports that the nation is satisfied at the same time they report that Nixon is expanding the war in Laos, to express our dissatisfaction."

Rent Administration Named

The Council also received an unexpected communication from City Manager John Corcoran naming William J. Corkery to the $16,000 a year post of rent control administrator. Corkery, a private attorney in Cambridge since his admission to the bar in 1952, served with the Cambridge Rent Control Board after World War II.

Corkery was not one of the original three candidates recommended to the City Manager by the Mayor's "Blue Ribbon" Committee of Cambridge tenants, landlords, and neutrals, to serve as rent control administrator. Both Corcoran and Corkery were unavailable for comment on the appointment.

This appointment means that Philip M. Cronin, City Solicitor, will step down from his post as Interim Rent Control Administrator.

In other action the Council defeated by a vote of 8-1 a resolution introduced by Councilor Coates to establish a Police Commissioner with powers to oversee the Chief of Police and the Cambridge Police Force.