Today there are four basic ways of working with elected officials and staff: email, telephone, letter and face-to-face.
One of the principles of friendly contact is to look for common grounds. These may be activities, mutual friends, etc: if you don't know the person, look up a biographical reference, perhaps by typing the name in a internet search engine such as Google, AltaVista or Yahoo. And ask people you know for their experiences.
Opportunities for contacts can be some event, such as candidate meeting, or even better, an outing, a field trip, or a invitation to attend a meeting, perhaps as a speaker. At these, it may be best to avoid the current environmental problems, and just concentrate on friendly contact: a chance to relax is often important.
Staff is there to work with you. Just be sure you know why you are taking up time, and what you want. It helps to make notes of the important points to cover before starting a "contact". And pay some attention to attitude- if they sound under pressure, ask if you can return to the matter later, and ask what time would be convenient.
With elected officials, give particular attention to two factors: there are already enormous demands for time, and did you support the person the last election. Unless the official is an avowed environmentalist, its likely you did not, but then, you probably didn't support the opponent either. In any event, a congratulation on being elected should be considered.
When you get around to presenting the environmental view, be brief, but above all, be accurate. If a question comes back that you do not know the answer for, say so, and that you will get the answer- it gives you a reason to call again.
You may want to separate your points into immediate concerns, and those that exist in the long term view. It seems that a goodly share of environmental problems arise because "Cumulative impact", long term cost, additive destruction of natural features, and such are neglected..
There is a military principle which is worth remembering: position your strong points against the enemy's weak ones. For this you need to fully understand what you are opposing: look for what is not being said. And consider the gap as a weakness, as compared to some need of the environment.
It is worth noting that some people enjoy personal contacts and are
better at them or others. If you are facing a major environmental problem,
consider a team approach: some to develop a plan of action, and others
to work with the involved officials. Developers should not have a monopoly
on "politicking"