This may be common sense and something everyone here's already thought of, but it could help your situation if you can find some "good" practices, code, etc. to comment on as well as the bad and/or ugly.

When I was hired for my current position, I was brought in to be the new "Web Guy," as the people currently handling the organization's website had no real web design experience. A lot of what I found waiting for me needed serious improvement, mostly due to inexperience. About a week in, I was asked what I thought of the site, and I was able to truthfully point out several things that had been done right and several stylistic pitfalls that had been avoided.

I believe this gave me a bit more credibility with the people who had been handling the site before me (one of whom is my supervisor), and combined with constructive criticism of other areas of the site, stopped short of ye olde brown nose. ;)

-rattus, this'd be my $0.02 if rats carried pocket change