The news cameras surrounded her and she responded to an array of questions with the professionalism of a council member who has been at the job for years.
On the inside, though, she still felt a bit like a deer in the headlights as she rapidly adjusted to her new role.
"All I could think at the moment they called my name was, 'Wow, this really happened,'" Hurtak said.
Hurtak is sworn into council today, and she'll represent all of Tampa in her District 3 at-large seat. She's the only woman currently on council.
Born in Tampa at St. Joseph's Women's Hospital on July 1, 1977, Hurtak is the daughter of working class parents who named her after the Jimmy Buffet song, "There's Something So Feminine About A Mandolin." Thus the name, "Amanda Lynn."
In her youth, she went by "Mandy", but to her chagrin, people kept singing her the Barry Manilow song with the same title, so by middle school she had decided she wanted to go by Lynn.
Nevertheless, she is still fond of her parent's given name, and has a mandolin hanging on the wall in her house in Seminole Heights, where she cut her teeth in local civic activism before also joining Tampa's Charter Review Commission in 2019 and was appointed to the Variance Review Board after that.
She's the current Vice President of the Old Seminole Heights Neighborhood Association and is also involved with Tampa NOW, the League of Women Voters of Hillsborough County, and Tampa Bay Beagle Rescue.
But before returning to Tampa and getting involved in local groups and politics back in 2015, Hurtak lived in Gainesville and attained a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's in elementary education.
It was during her college years that she realized she wanted to work in public service, to help her community. At the University of Florida, she took a course called "The Politics of Poverty" and read the book, "Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools" by Jonathan Kozol. It was a game changer for Hurtak, and soon after, she was volunteering at Idylwild Elementary School in Gainesville.
She was 20 at the time, and an educator named Carrie Geiger, who is now principal of P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School in Gainesville, took Hurtak under her wing.
"She was just amazing, she became a mentor to me," Hurtak said. "She said, you're really good at this, you should become a teacher."
Hurtak started working as an aide and then a substitute teacher while putting herself through educator classes before eventually being hired full time in 2002 for around $36,000 a year.
During that time, she was a proud member of the Alachua County Education Association, and a union representative at her school.
"That experience really means a lot to me, and I look forward to hearing what local unions have to say," Hurtak said.
After dedicating seven years of her life to teaching, she switched career paths, went independent and and became a technical editor for the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2010—she still picks up work for USAID editing reports and evaluations for food security, monitoring, evaluation and capacity building projects.
Being involved in large social groups wasn't easy for Hurtak initially. She's naturally an introvert, and her quiet hours at home are where she recharges. But when she was young, her father, Tom Hurtak, used to encourage her engage with people on his business trips and when out in public. Her mother, Diane Kulas Hurtak, was a social worker during her upbringing, who interacted with a wide intersection of people. This gave Lynn insight into communities beyond her own.
Family is also how she bonded with her husband, media consultant and nationally renowned journalist Tim Burke, who has also has a byline in Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
They initially met in August of 2007 at an event for FARK, which is a news site dedicated to sharing interesting and strange news. The gathering was at a Howard Johnson off 50th Street in Tampa.
"It was a primo, primo location," Hurtak said, laughing. "Tim came up to me and we had a five minute conversation about baseball, and all sorts of other things."
They stayed in touch after that meeting, and when Hurtak needed to write her grandmother's eulogy, Burke, a speech professor at the time, offered to help.
"There wasn't a dry eye in the building, and now I'm my family's eulogy person," Hurtak said.
Burke drove up the weekend after to meet her in Gainesville, and while driving around 16th avenue, something hit her.
"I just looked at him, and I remember thinking, 'I could marry this man,"' Hurtak said.
Tim Burke
Lynn and Tim at dinner in 2007.
Along with being staunch supporters of the LGBTQ+ community and union advocates, they also stand behind the Black Lives Matter movement.
"We're saying Black Lives Matter, because right now this is a community that has historically been discriminated against, not not only by police, not only by the city, not only by the government, not only by real estate," Hurtak said. "I mean, historically, there are a lot of marginalized communities. But that's what we're saying now, is, 'Yes, I hear you, and I stand with you and I see what you're saying.'"
Hurtak added that this does not mean she is anti-police, but that in any organization, there are issues that need to be dealt with, for the health and well being of everyone in the community.
Hurtak is bringing all her progressive values with her to council, and they aren't going to change now that she's elected, she said.
But in a moment of vulnerability, she revealed a fear of hers as she takes the council seat.
"I'm worried that people think that I'm coming to council with solutions to these issues in the city, but I don't have all of them," Hurtak said. "What I really want to do is listen to the community."
In a year, the community will also tell Hurtak how they feel when she goes up for re-election.
And there are important concerns from the citizens of Tampa, from the raging housing crisis, to transparency with the city's development projects.
Hurtak's appointment comes in the wake of former councilman John Dingfelder's resignation over a public records lawsuit, and as Orlando Gudes faces allegations of creating a toxic workplace through caustic language and behavior. Meanwhile, the mayor's administration has been accused of shady political maneuvers against council.
When asked about the chaotic politics going on, Hurtak said that she wants to stay focused on the big picture.
"I owe it to my colleagues and my constituents to focus on becoming the best I can be as a council member," Hurtak said. "It is in my nature to do what I can to get to know people, get along with them on the areas I can, and to listen to people. Because they know what they need."
