In 1976, Álvarez joined the Miami-Dade Police Department. He was promoted through the ranks and, in 1997, became director of the MDPD. He served as director from 1997 to 2004. His tenure as director was called "relatively free of trouble, at least by local standards" by the Miami New Times, although in 2004 a group of policemen who served in the department described his management style as marked by "favoritism and retaliation".
Mayoralty
Carlos Álvarez ran for mayor in the 2004 Miami-Dade mayoral election, and defeated his opponent Jimmy L. Morales. He became Miami-Dade County's sixth mayor, replacing Alex Penelas. In 2007, Alvarez successfully launched a referendum to give the mayoralty more power, giving him direct control of the county's bureaucracy. He was re-elected as county mayor on August 26, 2008, for his second term. In 2009, Alvarez led a successful effort to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of the city's money to build a new baseball field for the local team the Florida Marlins. In August 2009, The Miami Herald revealed that Alvarez had recently given pay raises to close aides, including his chief of staff Dennis Morales, whose new salary was over $200,000 a year. In September 2010, Alvarez pushed for a 12% increase in the property tax rate.
Recall
An effort to recall Alvarez began in October 2010, backed by billionaire businessman Norman Braman, a former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, over Alvarez's simultaneous tax increases and pay raises for upper echelon county workers. Braman spent more than $1 million of his own money on the effort. Alvarez was recalled in a March 15, 2011 election. More than 88% of the voters voted for recalling Alvarez. The election was the largest municipal recall vote in United States history, and the second largest in the U.S. of any kind after the 2003 recall election of California governor Gray Davis. He officially left office on March 18, 2011 when the county canvassing board certified the results.
Personal life
Álvarez is the father of two sons and one daughter. After the recall, Álvarez began bodybuilding. In January 2013, he emerged from relative seclusion to compete in the National Physique Committee’s South Florida “Over 60s” Master’s bodybuilding competition, where he won first place. In April 2016, he was arrested on a domestic battery charge after a fight with his girlfriend. According to the police report, his girlfriend's teenage daughter told police that Álvarez had been violent toward her mother since 2013.
